(yriental *^^yespotism
A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF TOTAL POWER
by i/Carl(0fr. VVittfogel
New Haven and London: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS
© 1957 BY YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS, INC.
SIXTH PRINTING, MARCH 1967
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY
THE MURRAY PRINTING COMPANY,
FORGE VILLAGE, MASSACHUSETTS.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 56-10873
NOTE
For permission to quote from the following works the author is very
grateful: H. Idris Bell, Egypt from Alexander the Great to the Arab
Conquest, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1948; J. A. Dubois, Hindu
Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, tr. and ed. Henry K. Beauchamp,
Oxford, the Clarendon Press, 1943; Dwight D. Eisenhower, Crusade
in Europe, Garden City, Long Island, Doubleday, 1948; Kautilya's
Arthds&stra, tr. R. Shamasastry, 2d ed. Mysore, Wesleyan Mission
Press, 1923; S. N. Miller, "The Army and the Imperial House," in
Cambridge Ancient History, Cambridge, England, Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1939; Vincent A. Smith, Oxford History of India, Ox-
ford, the Clarendon Press, 1928; W. W. Tarn, Hellenistic Civilization,
London, Edward Arnold, 1927; Alfred M. Tozzer, Landa's Relacion
de las Cosas de Yucatan, Papers of the Peabody Museum of American
Archaeology and Ethnology, Cambridge, Harvard University, 1941;
John A. Wilson, "Proverbs and Precepts: Egyptian Instructions," in
Ancient Near Eastern Texts, ed. James B. Pritchard, Princeton,
Princeton University Press, 1950.
PREFACE
Two aspects of this study of Oriental despotism quickly aroused
interest: the attempt to establish the peculiarity of a non-Western
semi-managerial system of despotic power and the interpretation of
Communist totalitarianism as a total managerial, and much more
despotic, variant of that system.
A third aspect has been less commented on, but it is largely respon-
sible for whatever insights the inquiry achieved: the use, of big struc-
tured concepts for the purpose of identifying big patterns of societal
structure and change.
To be sure, this method is not new. It was employed by Aristotle,
Machiavelli, and the physiocrats. It produced spectacular results when
Adam Smith and his successors erected a system of economics that
considered the minutiae of the workshop and market within the con-
text of the over-all economic and social order.
Then followed years of indifference. But today the method is again
coming to the fore. Comprehensive analytic tools are needed for the
understanding of our complex national and international industrial
economy. They are vital for a realistic appraisal of the complex
operations of the Communist world. Today the economists are clamor-
ing for a new macro-eConomy. And social scientists in other disciplines
are as eager to find what may be called macro-analytic methods of
research.
The macro-analytic revolution is the most promising development
in our present intellectual crisis. But it will be successful only if we
face empirical reality in its geo-historical depth, and if we include in
our arsenal the tested big concepts of our intellectual forebears.
Efforts to appraise the phenomena of Communist totalitarianism, such
as collective leadership and autocracy, power economy and subsistence
economy, self-perpetuation and self-liquidation, will do more harm
than good if we rely primarily on the experiences of multicentered
societies and neglect the only major precedent of enduringly success-
ful total power: Oriental despotism. Efforts to explain the agrarian
crises in the USSR and Communist China will yield problematic re-
sults if we view Soviet agriculture in terms of American agriculture
and Chinese agriculture in terms of Soviet agriculture. Such efforts
are macro-analytic in intent, but meso-analytic in substance. They
improperly generalize from a limited, and inadequate, empirical base.
A genuinely macro-analytic inquirer will carefully utilize the theo-
retical heritage of his field just as does the engineer who endeavors to
iii
IV PREFACE
exhaust the creative possibilities of his craft on the earth, under the
sea, and in space. A scientist who thinks he must invent all his tools
anew may well enter the research situation with an empty mind — but
he will also leave it with an empty mind. Properly applied, the growth
potential of a reality-tested big concept is enormous. Rooted in past
experiences and ideas, it has every chance to develop with the new
empirical data that it is likely to uncover.
Macro-analytical principles guided me when, in the early thirties,
I tried to determine the peculiarity of Chinese economics as part of
a peculiar Chinese (and "Asiatic") society. They guided me when, in
the early forties, I tried to determine the difference between China's
conquest dynasties and the typically Chinese dynasties. They guided
me when I tried to determine the difference between Oriental despot-
ism, the multicentered societies of the West (and Japan), and Com-
munist (and Fascist) totalitarianism. These same principles continue
to guide me in my comparative study of total and totalitarian power
today.
The present volume reproduces the original text of Oriental
Despotism with a few additions and corrections from the third Ameri-
can printing and the German edition. For his work in the preparation
of the German edition I wish to thank Frits Kool, Amsterdam, with
whom I discussed many of its problems in an extended correspondence.
The original study received friendly support from many institu-
tions and persons. I am profoundly indebted to the Far Eastern and
Russian Institute of the University of Washington for enabling me
to engage in the diverse research that constitutes the factual basis of
the present book. As co-sponsor of the Chinese History Project, New
York, Columbia University provided facilities of office and library.
For a number of years the Rockefeller Foundation supported the
over-all project of which this study is an integral part. Grants given
by the American Philosophical Society and the Wenner-Gren Founda-
tion for Anthropological Research made possible the investigation of
special aspects of Oriental despotism.
Scholars from various disciplines have encouraged my efforts. With-
out attempting to list them all, I mention in gratitude Pedro Armillas,
Pedro Carrasco, Chang Chung-li, Nathan Glazer, Waldemar Gurian,
Karl Menges, Franz Michael, George P. Murdock, Angel Palerm,
Julian H. Steward, Donald W. Treadgold, Hellmut Wilhelm, and
C. K. Yang. I have been privileged to discuss crucial problems with
two outstanding students of modern totalitarianism: Bertram D.
Wolfe and the late Peter Meyer.
PREFACE V
In the field of the Muslim and pre-Muslim East I was particularly
aided in my researches by Gerard Salinger. In the realm of Chinese
studies I drew upon the knowledge of Chaoying Fang, Lienche Tu
Fang, Lea Kisselgoff, and Tung-tsu Chu, all of whom were, at the
time of writing, on the staff of the Chinese History Project. Bertha
Gruner carefully typed and checked the first draft of an analysis of
Russian society and the Marxist-Leninist attitude toward Oriental
despotism, intended originally as a separate publication but eventual-
ly included in significant part in the present volume. Ruth Ricard
was indefatigable in preparing the manuscript, which offered many
problems of form, source material, and bibliography.
An inquiry into the nature of bureaucratic totalitarianism is bound
to encounter serious obstacles. Among those who helped in overcom-
ing them, two persons must be mentioned particularly. George E.
Taylor, director of the Far Eastern and Russian Institute of the Uni-
versity of Washington, never wavered in his understanding of my
endeavors and in his support for what seemed at times beyond hope
of completion. My wife and closest collaborator, Esther S. Goldfrank,
shared every step in the struggle for the clarification of basic scientific
truths and human values.
It was my belief in these values that put me behind the barbed
wire of Hitler's concentration camps. My final thoughts go to those
who, like myself, were passing through that inferno of total terror.
Among them, some hoped for a great turning of the tables which
would make them guards and masters where formerly they had been
inmates and victims. They objected, not to the totalitarian means, but
to the ends for which they were being used.
Others responded differently. They asked me, if ever opportunity
offered, to explain to all who would listen the inhumanity of totalitar-
ian rule in any form. Over the years and more than I can express,
these men have inspired my search for a deeper understanding of the
nature of total power.
KARL A. WITTFOGEL
New York} September 1962
CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction
in
i
Chapter i: The Natural Setting of Hydraulic Society
A. Changing Man in Changing Nature
B. The Historical Place of Hydraulic Society
C. The Natural Setting
i. Historical Conditions Being Equal, a Major Natural Difference
the Possible Cause of Decisive Institutional Differences
2. Several Natural Factors Essential to Farming ,a
3. Some Essential Factors Defy Compensating Action; Others Respond
More Readily
4. The Specific Qualities of Water ,,
D. Must the Hydraulic Potential Be Actualized? 15
1. An Open Historical Situation — but Recognizable Patterns of Re-
sponse jk
2. The Recognized Advantages of Irrigation Agriculture 17
a. If ... , then ... t*
b. Arid, Semi-arid, and Humid Areas: Hypothetical Patterns of Inter-
action and Growth jd
11
11
12
Chapter 2: Hydraulic Economy — a Managerial and Genuinely Political
Economy 22
A. Division of Labor in Hydraulic Agriculture 23
1. Preparatory and Protective Operations Separated from Farming
Proper 2a
a. Large-scale Preparatory Operations (Purpose: Irrigation) 23
b. Large-scale Protective Operations (Purpose: Flood Control) 23
2. Cooperation 25
a. Dimension 25
b. Integration 26
c. Leadership 26
d. Hydraulic Leadership — Political Leadership 27
B. Heavy Water Works and Heavy Industry 27
C. Calendar Making and Astronomy — Important Functions of the Hy-
draulic Regime 29
D. Further Construction Activities Customary in Hydraulic Societies 30
1. Nonagrarian Hydraulic Works oQ
a. Aqueducts and Reservoirs Providing Drinking Water 30
b. Navigation Canals ^i
2. Large Nonhydraulic Constructions 34
a. Huge Defense Structures 34
vii
vn* CONTENTS
b. Roads 37
c. Palaces, Capital Cities, and Tombs 39
d. Temples 40
E. The Masters of Hydraulic Society — Great Builders 42
1. The Aesthetic Aspect 42
a. Uneven Conspicuousness 42
b. The Monumental Style 49
c. The Institutional Meaning 44
F. The Bulk of All Large Nonconstructional Industrial Enterprises Man-
aged also by the Hydraulic Government 45
1. A Comparative View 45
2. The Power of the Hydraulic State over Labor Greater Than That
of Capitalist Enterprises 47
G. A Genuine and Specific Type of Managerial Regime 48
Chapter 3: A State Stronger than Society 49
A. Nongovernmental Forces Competing with the State for Societal Lead-
ership 49
B. The Organizational Power of the Hydraulic State 50
1. The Great Builders of Hydraulic Society — Great Organizers 50
2. Fundamentals of Effective Organization: Counting and Record
Keeping 5o
3. Organizational and Hydraulic Management 52
a. The Organizational Task Inherent in Large Constructions, Hy-
draulic and Otherwise 52
b. Hydraulic Management 52
4. The Organization of Quick Locomotion and Intelligence 54
5. The Organizational Pattern of Warfare in Hydraulic Society 59
a. Monopolization and Coordination 59
b. Training and Morale 60
c. Organization of Supplies 61
d. Planned Warfare and Military Theory 62
e. Numbers 63
f. Percentages 66
C. The Acquisitive Power of the Hydraulic State 67
1. Organizational and Bureaucratic Prerequisites 67
2. Labor on the Public Fields and /or the Land Tax 68
3. Universality and Weight of the Hydraulic Tax Claim 70
4. Confiscation 72
D. Hydraulic Property — Weak Property 78
1. Four Ways of Weakening Private Property 78
2. Hydraulic Laws of Inheritance: the Principle 79
3. The Application 79
4. The Effect 80
a. On Regulated Villages 80
CONTENTS IX
b. On Holders of Small Private Property 80
c. On Holders of Large Private Property 80
5. Pertinent Western Developments 81
a. The Democratic City States of Ancient Greece 81
b. The United States after the War of Independence 81
c. A Spectacular Contrast: the Strength of Landed Property in Late
Feudal and Postfeudal Europe 81
6. Different Social Forces Opposed to Proprietary Perpetuities 82
a. Small and Mobile Property 82
b. The States of Feudal and Postfeudal Europe 83
c. Hydraulic Absolutism Succeeded Where the States of Occidental
Feudalism and Absolutism Failed 84
7. The Organizational Impotence of Hydraulic Property Holders 85
E. The Hydraulic Regime Attaches to Itself the Country's Dominant Re-
ligion 87
1. Sole, Dominant, and Secondary Religions 87
2. Religious Authority Attached to the Hydraulic State 87
a. The Hydraulic Regime — Occasionally (quasi-) Hierocratic 87
b. The Hydraulic Regime — Frequently Theocratic 90
c. Agrarian Despotism Always Keeps the Dominant Religion Inte-
grated in Its Power System 96
d. The Changing Position of the Dominant Priesthood in Hydraulic
Society 99
F. Three Functional Aspects, but a Single System of Total Power 100
Chapter 4: Despotic Power — Total and Not Benevolent 101
A. Total Power 101
1. Absence of Effective Constitutional Checks 101
2. Absence of Effective Societal Checks 102
a. No Independent Centers of Authority Capable of Checking the
Power of the Hydraulic Regime J02
b. The So-called Right of Rebellion 103
c. Election of the Despot — No Remedy 104
d. Intragovernmental Influences: Absolutism and Autocracy 106
3. Laws of Nature and Patterns of Culture — No Effective Checks Either 107
B. The Beggars' Democracy 108
1. The Managerial Variant of the Law of Changing Administrative
Returns 109
a. Hydraulic Agriculture: the Law of Increasing Administrative Re-
turns 109
b. The Law of Balanced Administrative Returns 109
c. The Law of Diminishing Administrative Returns 1 10
d. Ideal Curve and Reality of Changing Returns 110
e. Nonhydraulic Spheres of Political Economy 110
2. The Power Variant of the Law of Changing Administrative Returns 111
a. Imperative and Worth-while Efforts m
CONTENTS
ill
b. The Forbidding Cost of Total Social Control in a Semimanagerial
Society
c. Total Social Control Not Necessary for the Perpetuation of Agro-
managerial Despotism 112
3. Sectors of Individual Freedom in Hydraulic Society 113
a. Limitations of Managerial Control 113
b. Limitations of Thought Control 114
4. Groups Enjoying Varying Degrees of Autonomy 115
a. Less Independence than Frequently Assumed 116
i. The Family 116
ii. The Village 117
iii. The Guilds 120
iv. Secondary Religions 121
b. Genuine Elements of Freedom Nevertheless Present 122
5. Conclusion 124
a. Politically Irrelevant Freedoms 124
b. A Beggars' Democracy 125
C. Hydraulic Despotism — Benevolent Despotism? 126
1. Total Power — for the Benefit of the People? 126
2. The Claim and the Reality 126
a. Operational Necessity Not to Be Confused with Benevolence 126
b. The Rationality Coefficient of Hydraulic Society 126
c. Whose Rationality Coefficient? 127
3. The Rulers' Rationality Optimum Prevails 128
a. Necessity and Choice in the Policy of the Hydraulic Regime 128
b. The Rulers' Managerial Optimum 128
c. The Rulers' Consumptive Optimum 129
d. The Rulers' Judicial Optimum 131
4. "Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely" 133
5. The Rulers' Publicity Optimum 133
6. The Two-fold Function of the Benevolence Myth 134
a. It Stresses the Long-range Interest of the Despotic Regime 134
b. It Weakens Potential Opposition 135
c. The Presence of Good Sovereigns and Just Officials Fails to Upset
the Prevailing Trend 135
7. Hydraulic Despotism: Benevolent in Form, Oppressive in Content 136
Chapter 5: Total Terror — Total Submission — Total Loneliness 137
A. Autonomous Man under Total Power 137
B. Terror Essential for Maintaining the Rulers' Rationality Optimum 137
1. The Need 137
2. Its Official Recognition: "Punishment Is the Kingl" 138
3. The Morphology of Violence 139
a. Integrated versus Fragmented Patterns of Violence 139
b. Controlled versus Uncontrolled Violence 140
C. The Terror of Hydraulic Despotism 140
1. Its Physical Aspect 141
CONTENTS Xi
2. Its Psychological Aspect 141
a. Unpredictability j^j
b. Lenin: "... power not limited by any laws" 141
c. Lawless Terror and Terror by Law 142
3. "Government by Flogging" 143
a. Terror in Managerial Procedures 143
b. Terror in Fiscal Procedures 143
c. Terror in Judicial Procedures 144
d. Western Correspondences Noteworthy for Their Temporary
Strength and Their Limitations 145
4. Varying Configurations of Terror in the Hydraulic World 147
a. Relatively Lenient Developments 147
b. Average and Excessive Developments 148
D. Total Submission 149
1. Man's Response to the Threat of Total Terror 149
a. The Postulate of Common Sense and the Virtue of Good Citizen-
ship: Obedience 149
2. Preparation for Total Obedience: Disciplinary Education 151
3. The Great Symbol of Total Submission: Prostration 152
E. Total Loneliness 154
1. Loneliness Created by Fear 154
a. The Ruler: Trust No One! 155
b. The Official: Eternal Suspicion 155
c. The Commoner: the Fear of Being Trapped by Involvement 156
2. The Alienation Potential of Total Power 156
3. Every-day Adjustments 157
4. Total Loneliness in the Hour of Doom 157
Chapter 6: The Core, the Margin, and the Submargin of Hydraulic So-
cieties 161
A. Preliminary Stock-taking in the Middle of the Journey 16 1
1. Some Basic Results 16 1
2. Three Problems Deserving Further Investigation 161
3. Problems of Hydraulic Density 162
B. Hydraulic Core Areas 162
1. How Continuous Is the Hydraulic System of a Given Hydraulic
Area? 162
2. How Great Is the Economic and Political Weight of a Given Hy-
draulic Economy? 163
3. How Strong Is the Second Major Element of Hydraulic Operation:
Flood Control? 165
4. Compact and Loose Hydraulic Societies 165
5. The Great Agromanagerial Empires — Usually Loose Hydraulic So-
cieties 166
6. Degrees of Hydraulic Density and Degrees of Bureaucratic Density 167
a. The Principle 167
b. Changing Bureaucratic Density of a Hydraulic Territory 169
XII CONTENTS
7. Hydraulically Concerned and Hydraulically Unconcerned Masters
of Hydraulic Society 169
8. Periods of Agromanagerial Adjustment, Degeneration, and Restora-
tion 171
9. The Staying Power of Deteriorated Agromanagerial Hydraulic So-
cieties 172
C. The Margin of the Hydraulic World 173
1. Varying Operational and Bureaucratic Density Patterns in Marginal
Areas of the Hydraulic World 173
2. The Growth of Proprietary Forces 176
3. The Institutional Staying Power of Marginal Oriental Despotism 177
a. Bureaucratic Interests Favoring the Reproduction of the Despotic
Order 177
b. Late Byzantium: Marasmus, rather than Creative Transformation 178
c. The Extraordinary Staying Power of Tsarist Bureaucracy 179
d. Ottoman Turkey 181
e. Diversified Final Evolutions 181
4. Marginal Agrarian Despotisms Containing Conspicuous Hydraulic
Elements 182
a. The Liao Empire 182
b. Maya Society 184
5. "Loose 2" or "Marginal 1"? 188
6. Fragmenting Patterns of Inheritance and a Government-Dependent
Dominant Religion 188
7. Location, Genesis, and Institutional Vulnerability of Marginal
Agrarian Despotisms igi
a. Location
b. Genesis
c. Institutional Vulnerability 194
D. The Submarginal Zone of the Hydraulic World 195
1. The Phenomenon
2. Cases
a. Protohistorical Greece
b. Early Rome 197
c. Japan ig7
d. Pre-Mongol (Kievan) Russia 201
3. Comment 203
E. Societies Which Cross the Institutional Divide 204
1. Nonagricultural Peoples adopting and transmitting Power Devices
of Agrarian Despotism 204
a. Such Devices Not Necessary for, but Compatible with, Nomadic
Pastoralism
b. The Brittleness of Orientally Despotic Power at the Pastoral
Fringe of the Hydraulic World 206
2. Agricultural Civilizations Crossing the Institutional Divide 207
a. Greece 207
191
192
195
*95
J95
204
CONTENTS Xiii
b. Rome 208
i. The Rise of a Hellenistic Version of Oriental Despotism 208
ii. The Fall of Agromanagerial Despotism in Western Rome 212
c. Europe after 476 213
i. Unsuccessful Attempts to Rule Absolutely 213
ii. The "Unparalleled" Case of the Domesday Book 213
d. Spain 214
i. Oriental Conquest 214
ii. The Reconquista 216
e. The Introduction of Oriental Despotism into Russia 219
F. Structure and Change in the Density Patterns of the Oriental World 225
1. Structure 225
a. Density Subtypes of Hydraulic Society 225
b. Differing Frequencies of Occurrence 226
c. Decreasing Importance of Hydraulic Economy Proper 226
2. Capacity for Societal Change 227
Chapter 7: Patterns of Proprietary Complexity in Hydraulic Society 228
A. The Human Relation Called "Property" 228
B. Objects of Property Rights 229
C. The Potential Scope of Proprietary Rights 229
D. Three Major Complexity Patterns in Hydraulic Civilizations 230
1. Simple, Semicomplex, and Complex Patterns of Property 230
2. Supplementary Remarks 231
a. "Simple I" and "Simple II" 231
b. Proprietary Complexity and Hydraulic Density 232
E. Nonspecific and Specific Aspects in the Proprietary Conditions of
Tribal Hydraulic Societies 232
1. Nonspecific Aspects 232
2. Specific Aspects 233
3. Simple I . . . 237
F. Patterns of Property in State-centered Simple Hydraulic Societies 238
1. Statehood versus Primitive Government 238
2. Steps in the Professionalizing of Government 239
a. Chagga Chieftainship and the State of Ancient Hawaii 239
b. Proprietary Consequences 242
3. Simple Patterns of Property in Land, Industry, and Commerce 243
4. Variants of Simple Patterns of Hydraulic Property and Society 245
a. Hawaii 245
b. Inca Peru 246
c. Pharaonic Egypt 250
d. Ancient China 251
e. Sumer 253
5. Origins of Bureaucratic Capitalism 255
6. The Hydraulic Sponge 256
XIV CONTENTS
G. Semicomplex Patterns of Hydraulic Property and Society 258
1. Occurrences 258
a. Pre-Conquest Meso-America 258
b. India, China, the Near East 260
c. Byzantium and Russia 260
2. How Powerful Could the Representatives of Private Mobile and Ac-
tive Property Become in Semicomplex Hydraulic Societies? 262
a. Miscellaneous Developments 263
b. Hindu India 264
c. Ancient Mesopotamia 267
d. Conclusions 269
H. Complex Patterns of Property in Hydraulic Society 270
1. Hydraulic Landlordism, Past and Present 270
2. Government-controlled and Private Land in Hydraulic Society 271
a. Types of Government-controlled Land 271
i. Government-managed Land 271
ii. Government-regulated Land 272
iii. Government-assigned Land 273
b. Private Land 275
i. Definitions 275
ii. Origins 275
c. Types of Landownership 275
i. Peasant Landownership 275
ii. Bureaucratic Landlordism 276
iii. Other Social Groups 277
iv. Absentee Landlordism (the General Trend) 277
v. Absentee Landlordism (Traditional Russia) 278
vi. Borderline Cases of Regulated and Private Land Tenure 279
d. The Extent of Private Landownership in Various Subtypes of
Hydraulic Society 280
i. Simple Hydraulic Societies 280
ii. Semicomplex Hydraulic Societies 281
iii. Complex Patterns of Hydraulic Property and Society 286
3. How Free Is Private Landed Property in Hydraulic Society? 291
a. Despotically Imposed versus Democratically Established Restric-
tions of Private Property 291
b. Restrictions Imposed upon the Freedom to Enjoy, to Use, to
Transfer, and to Organize 292
I. The Effect of Private Property on Hydraulic Society 293
1. The Perpetuation of Hydraulic Society Depends on the Govern-
ment's Maintenance of its Property Relations 293
2. The Growing Complexity of Property and the Growing Complexity
of Society 294
3. Small Property Offers a Considerable Economic Incentive, but No
Political Power 294
a. Incentives Inherent in Private Possession and Ownership 294
b. The Beggars' Property 295
CONTENTS XV
4. Private Commercial Property Politically Inconsequential Even When
Permitted to Become Large 297
5. Problems of Wealth within the Governing Class 297
a. Bureaucratic Hedonism 298
b. Bureaucratic Landlordism and Capitalism 298
6. Conclusions Leading to New Questions 300
a. Hydraulic Property: Revenue Property versus Power Property 300
b. The Importance — and Limitation — of Private Property in De-
termining Class Differentiations within Hydraulic Society 300
Chapter 8: Classes in Hydraulic Society 301
A. The Need for a New Sociology of Class 301
B. Class Structure in Hydraulic Society 302
1. The Key Criterion: Relation to the State Apparatus 302
2. The Multiple Conditioning of Social Subsections 304
C. The Rulers 305
1. The Men of the Apparatus 305
a. The Basic Vertical Structure 305
i. The Ruler and the Court 305
ii. The Ranking Officials 306
iii. The Underlings 307
b. Horizontal Developments 307
i. Satraps 308
ii. Subordinate Princes, Curacas, Rajas 309
iii. Gradations of Power in Modern Totalitarian States 310
2. Subclasses Attached to the Men of the Apparatus 311
a. Attachment Based on Kinship 311
i. The Ruling House 311
ii. The Bureaucratic Gentry 312
iii. The Relatives of Civil Underlings and Rank-and-File Soldiers 316
b. Attachment Based on Semi-, Quasi-, or Pre-Official Status 317
i. Secular Semi-officials (Commercial and Fiscal Agents) 317
ii. Religious Quasi-officials (Functionaries of the Dominant Reli-
gion) 318
iii. Persons Occupying a Pre-official Status (Trainees and Degree-
holding Candidates for Office) 319
iv. A Comparative Note (Professional Ideologists in the USSR) 319
c. Subdivided, but Still an Entity 320
D. The Ruled 321
1. Property-based Subsections of Commoners 321
2. Slaves 322
E. Modifications of Class Structure That Occur in Conquest Societies 324
1. Conquest Involving the Formation of Stratified Societies (Primary
Conquest) 324
2. Conquest Involving the Further Differentiation of Stratified So-
cieties (Secondary Conquest) 325
XVI CONTENTS
3. Class Modifications in Hydraulic Conquest Dynasties 326
a. The Chinese Did Not Always Absorb Their Conquerors 326
b. Devices for Preserving the Conquerors' Hegemony 326
c. Duplications of Class 327
F. Many Social Antagonisms but Little Class Struggle 327
1. Social Antagonism and Class Struggle 327
2. Paralysis of Class Struggle by Total Power 328
G. Antagonism between Members of Different Subsections of Com-
moners 329
H. The "People" versus the Men of the Apparatus 331
I. Social Conflicts within the Ruling Class 334
1. Ranking Officials versus Underlings 335
a. Bureaucratic Competition 336
a. Patterns of Competition Different in Different Societies 336
b. Bureaucratic Competition in Hydraulic Society 337
3. Civil versus Military Officials 338
a. The Autocrat and the Army 338
b. Civil versus Military Officials 339
4. The Bureaucratic Activists versus the Bureaucratic Gentry 340
5. Conflicts between the Autocrat and Other Members of the Ruling
Class 343
a. The Autocrat versus His Relatives 343
i. Blood Relatives 343
ii. Affinals 344
b. The Autocrat versus the Ranking Officials 345
i. Once More the Problem of Autocracy 345
ii. Human (Social) Relations Expressed through Institutional
Arrangements 345
6. Autocratic Methods of Controlling the Bureaucratic Personnel 346
a. The Ruler's Control over a Hereditary Officialdom (a Bureau-
cratic Nobility) 346
b. Autocratic Means of Weakening or Destroying the Self-perpetuat-
ing Quality of the Ranking Officials 346
i. Priests 346
ii. Commoners (General Observations) 347
iii. Commoners: Social Effects and Limitations of the Chinese
Examination System 347
iv. Eunuchs: the Principle 354
v. Eunuchs: a Few Historical Facts 356
vi. The Despot's Personal Agency No Incipient Party 358
vii. The Tribal Nobles of Conquest Dynasties 359
viii. Slaves 360
7. "Regular" Officials, Control Groups, and the People 362
J. Social Promotion 363
1. Reservoirs and Mainsprings of Social Promotion 363
2. Criteria for Social Promotion (Aptitudes "plus" . . . ) 364
CONTENTS XV11
3. Social Promotion on a Slave Plantation 364
K. The Total Ruling Class — a Monopoly Bureaucracy 365
1. The Ruling Class of Hydraulic Society and the Upper Classes in
Other Stratified Societies 365
a. Authoritarian Bodies Do Not Necessarily Exert Total Power 366
3. Monopoly versus Competition in Societal Leadership 366
4. Monopoly of Societal Leadership Appears in Oriental Despotism as
Monopoly of Bureaucratic Organization ("Monopoly Bureaucracy") 367
Chapter 9: The Rise and Fall of the Theory of the Asiatic Mode of Pro-
duction 369
A. Old and New Constructs of a Unilinear Development Disregard Hy-
draulic Society 370
1. 19th-century Unilinealists 370
2. Negative Criticisms 370
3. A Theoretical Vacuum 371
4. The Spread of a "Marxist-Leninist" Neo-unilinealism 371
5. The Need for a Reexamination of Marx', Engels', and Lenin's Views
on the "Asiatic System" and Oriental Despotism 372
B. Marx, Engels, and Lenin Accept the Asiatic Concept 372
1. Marx Follows His Classical Predecessors with Regard to the Institu-
tional Structure and the Developmental Position of the Orient 372
2. Marx' Asiatic Interpretation of India, China, and Post-Mongol Rus-
sia 374
a. India ("Asiatic Society" . . . ) 374
b. China (". . . Asiatic Production" and Private Peasant Landhold-
ing) 374
c. Russia ("Oriental despotism" . . . Perpetuated) 375
3. Marx Warns against Confusing the State-controlled Agrarian Order
of Asia with Slavery or Serfdom 376
4. "General Slavery" 377
5. For Many Years Lenin Also Upheld the Asiatic Concept 377
a. "Asiatic Despotism," a Totality of Traits "with Special Economic,
Political, and Sociological Characteristics" 378
b. Lenin Elaborates Marx' Semi-Asiatic Interpretation of Tsarist
Russia 379
c. Lenin Holds the Term "Feudal" Unsuited to Traditional Russia 379
C. Retreat from Truth 380
1. Marx 380
a. Marx "Mystifies" the Character of the Ruling Class 380
b. Further Retrogressions 381
2. Engels 382
a. Asiatic Society — Yes! (Engels' Basic Attitude) 382
b. Asiatic Society — Yes and Nol (The Anti-Duhring) 383
c. Asiatic Society — Nol (The Origin of the Family, Private Property,
and the State) 384
XV1U CONTENTS
d. Retrogressive Trends in a Supposedly Progressive Position 386
i. Marx Defends Scientific Objectivity against All Extraneous
Considerations 386
ii. Marx' and Engels' "Sin against Science" 387
iii. From Progressive to Reactionary Utopianism 388
3. Lenin 389
a. Lenin Further Cripples Marx' Crippled Version of the Asiatic
Concept 389
i. Consistent Disregard of the Managerial Aspect of Oriental
Despotism 389
ii. A Confused Presentation of Russia's Ruling Class 390
b. A Power-Strategist's Treatment of Truth 391
c. The Threat of the Asiatic Restoration (1906-07) 391
d. Further Oscillations (1907-14) 394
e. Full Retreat (1916-19) 395
i. Lenin's Imperialism (1916) 395
ii. State and Revolution (1917) 396
iii. Lenin's Lecture on the State (1919) 397
f. Lenin's Last Period: the Specter of the Aziatchina Reemerges 398
4. Stalin 401
a. The Old Guard Objects 401
b. A Half-hearted Criticism of the Theory of Oriental Society 402
i. The Leningrad Discussion (1931) 402
ii. The Significance of the 1931 Discussion 404
c. Ideological Twilight 405
d. Stalin "Edits" Marx 407
e. Delayed Reaction in the Anglo-Saxon World 408
f. The Rout of the Notorious Theory of the Asiatic Mode of Pro-
duction 409
D. Three Forms of the Blackout of the Theory of the Asiatic Mode of
Production 411
Chapter 10: Oriental Society in Transition 413
A. Basic Concepts of Societal Type and Development 414
1. Societal Types 414
a. Essential, Specific, and Nonspecific Elements of Society 414
b. Pre-industrial Stratified Societies 416
i. Pastoral Society 416
ii. Several Types of Ancient Societies 416
iii. Feudal Society 417
iv. Unwieldy Hydraulic Society 418
v. Residual Stratified Pre-industrial Societies 418
2. Societal Changes 419
a. Forms 419
b. Values 420
B. Hydraulic Society in Transition 421
1. Four Aspects of the Self-perpetuation of Hydraulic Society 421
a. The Potential for Institutional and Cultural Growth 421
CONTENTS
XIX
b. Stagnation, Epigonism, and Retrogression 422
c. The Staying-Power of Hydraulic Society 422
d. Societal Change Dependent on External Influence 429
2. Recent Patterns of External Influence 422
a. Patterns of Interrelation 424
b. The Influencing Side 42 ^
c. Institutional Differences in the Target Societies 427
3. Societal Results 42-
a. Russia 427
b. Colonized Hydraulic Countries 400
c. Semidependent ("Semicolonial") Countries 499
d. A New Developmental Force Arises: Soviet Communism 43G
4. Hydraulic Society at the Crossroads 436
a. The Developmental Issue Underlying the Bolshevik Revolution 436
b. The USSR — Russia's Asiatic Restoration? 408
c. Communist China — the Product of a Genuine "Asiatic Restora-
tion"?
C. Whither Asia?
D. Whither Western Society — Whither Mankind? 447
Notes 451
Bibliography
441
443
General Index
Index of Authors and Works
49i
53i
55°
INTRODUCTION
1.
When in the 16th and 17th centuries, in consequence of the com-
mercial and industrial revolution, Europe's trade and power spread
to the far corners of the earth, a number of keen-minded Western
travelers and scholars made an intellectual discovery comparable to
the great geographical exploits of the period. Contemplating the
civilizations of the Near East, India, and China, they found signifi-
cant in all of them a combination of institutional features which
existed neither in classical antiquity nor in medieval and modern
Europe. The classical economists eventually conceptualized this dis-
covery by speaking of a specific "Oriental" or "Asiatic" society.
The common substance in the various Oriental societies appeared
most conspicuously in the despotic strength of their political au-
thority. Of course, tyrannical governments were not unknown in
Europe: the rise of the capitalist order coincided with the rise of
absolutist states. But critical observers saw that Eastern absolutism
was definitely more comprehensive and more oppressive than its
Western counterpart. To them "Oriental" despotism presented the
harshest form of total power.
Students of government, such as Montesquieu, were primarily
concerned with the distressing personal effects of Oriental despotism,
students of economy with its managerial and proprietary range. The
classical economists particularly were impressed by the large water
works maintained for purposes of irrigation and communication.
And they noted that virtually everywhere in the Orient the gov-
ernment was the biggest landowner.1
These were extraordinary insights. They were, in fact, the starting
point for a systematic and comparative study of total power. But
no such study was undertaken. Why? Viewed alone, the social scien-
tists' withdrawal from the problem of Oriental despotism is puzzling.
But it is readily understandable when we consider the changes that
occurred in the 1 9th century in the general circumstances of Western
life. Absolutism prevailed in Europe when Bernier described his
experiences in the Near East and Mogul India and when Mon-
tesquieu wrote The Spirit of the Laxvs. But by the middle of the 1 9th
century representative governments were established in almost all
industrially advanced countries. It was then that social science turned
to what seemed to be more pressing problems.
2 INTRODUCTION
2.
Fortunate age. Fortunate, despite the sufferings that an expand-
ing industrial order imposed on masses of underprivileged men and
women. Appalled by their lot, John Stuart Mill claimed in 1852
that "the restraints of Communism would be freedom in comparison
with the present situation of the majority of the human race." 2
But he also declared that the modern property-based system of
industry, outgrowing its dismal childhood, might well satisfy man's
needs without grinding him down into "a tame uniformity of
thoughts, feelings, and actions." 3
Fortunate age. Its ever-critical children could combat the frag-
mented despotism of privilege and power, because they did not live
under a system of "general slavery."* Indeed they were so far re-
moved from the image of absolutist power that they felt no urge to
study its substance. Some, such as Max Weber, did examine illumi-
natingly, if not too systematically, certain aspects of Oriental state-
craft and bureaucracy. But by and large, what Bury said at the close
of the period of liberalism was true: little effort was made to de-
termine the peculiarities of absolutism through detailed comparative
study.*
Fortunate age. Optimistic age. It confidently expected the rising
sun of civilization to dispel the last vestiges of despotism that be-
clouded the path of progress.
3.
But the high noon has failed to fulfill the promises of the dawn.
Political and social earthquakes more terrifying than any that
previously shook the homelands of modern science make it painfully
clear that what has been won so far is neither safe nor certain. Total
power, far from meekly withering away, is spreading like a virulent
and aggressive disease. It is this condition that recalls man's previous
experience with extreme forms of despotic rule. It is this condition
that suggests a new and deepened analysis of Oriental — or as I now
prefer to call it, hydraulic — society.
4.
For three decades I studied the institutional settings of Oriental
despotism; and for a considerable part of this time I was content
to designate it "Oriental society." But the more my research ad-
a. Marx (1939: 395) applied this term to Oriental despotism without realizing that
more comprehensive forms of state slavery might emerge under conditions of industry.
INTRODUCTION 3
vanced, the more I felt the need for a new nomenclature. Distinguish-
ing as I do between a farming economy that involves small-scale
irrigation (hydroagriculture) and one that involves large-scale and
government-managed works of irrigation and flood control (hydrau-
lic agriculture), I came to believe that the designations "hydraulic
society" and "hydraulic civilization" express more appropriately
than the traditional terms the peculiarities of the order under dis-
cussion. The new nomenclature, which stresses human action rather
than geography, facilitates comparison with "industrial society" and
"feudal society." And it permits us, without circumstantial reasoning,
to include in our investigation the higher agrarian civilizations of
pre-Spanish America as well as certain hydraulic parallels in East
Africa and the Pacific areas, especially in Hawaii. By underlining
the prominent role of the government, the term "hydraulic," as I de-
fine it, draws attention to the agromanagerial and agrobureaucratic
character of these civilizations.
The present inquiry goes considerably beyond the findings of the
early students of Oriental society. In the following pages I endeavor
to describe systematically man's hydraulic response to arid, semi-
arid, and particular humid environments. I also indicate how the
major aspects of hydraulic society interlock in a vigorously function-
ing institutional going concern.
This going concern constitutes a geo-institutional nexus which
resembles industrial society in that a limited core area decisively
affects conditions in large interstitial and peripheral areas. In many
cases these marginal areas are politically connected with hydraulic
core areas; but they also exist independently. Manifestly, the
organizational and acquisitive institutions of the agrodespotic state
can spread without the hydraulic institutions which, to judge from
the available data, account for the genesis of all historically significant
zones of agrarian despotism. An understanding of the relations
between the core and the margin of hydraulic society — a phe-
nomenon barely noted by the pioneer analysts — is crucially im-
portant for an understanding of Western Rome, later Byzantium,
Maya civilization, and post-Mongol (Tsarist) Russia.
In the matter of private property the early institutionalists were
satisfied to indicate that the Oriental state controlled the strategic
means of production, and most importantly the cultivable land. The
real situation is much more complicated and, from the standpoint
of societal leadership, much more disturbing. History shows that in
4 INTRODUCTION
many hydraulic societies there existed very considerable active
(productive) private property; but it also shows that this development
did not threaten the despotic regimes, since the property holders,
as property holders, were kept disorganized and politically impotent.
Obviously, too much has been said about private property gen-
erally and too little about strong and weak property and about the
conditions which promote these forms. The analysis of the varieties
of private property in hydraulic society determines the limitations
of nonbureaucratic (and of bureaucratic) private property under
Oriental despotism. Its results contradict the belief that practically
any form of avowedly benevolent state planning is preferable to the
predominance of private property, a condition which modern socio-
logical folklore deems most abhorrent.
And then there is the problem of class. Richard Jones and John
Stuart Mill indicated that in Oriental society the officials enjoyed
advantages of income which in the West accrued to the private
owners of land and capital. Jones and Mill expressed a significant
truth. But they did so only in passing and without stating clearly
that under agrodespotic conditions the managerial bureaucracy was
the ruling class. They therefore did not challenge the widely accepted
concept of class which takes as its main criterion diversities in (active)
private property.
The present inquiry analyzes the patterns of class in a society whose
leaders are the holders of despotic state power and not private owners
and entrepreneurs. This procedure, in addition to modifying the
notion of what constitutes a ruling class, leads to a new evaluation of
such phenomena as landlordism, capitalism, gentry, and guild. It
explains why, in hydraulic society, there exists a bureaucratic land-
lordism, a bureaucratic capitalism, and a bureaucratic gentry. It
explains why in such a society the professional organizations, al-
though sharing certain features with the guilds of Medieval Europe,
were societally quite unlike them. It also explains why in such a
society supreme autocratic leadership is the rule.6 While the law of
diminishing administrative returns determines the lower limit of the
bureaucratic pyramid, the cumulative tendency of unchecked power •
determines the character of its top.
6.
The proponent of new scientific ideas unavoidably discards old
ideas. Almost as unavoidably he will be criticized by those who de-
fend the old position. Not infrequently such a controversy throws
new light on the entire issue. This has certainly been the case with
the theory of Oriental (or hydraulic) society.
INTRODUCTION 5
The reader will not be surprised to learn that this theory has
aroused the passionate hostility of the new total managerial bureauc-
racy that, in the name of Communism, today controls a large part
of the world's population. The Soviet ideologists, who in 1931 de-
clared the concept of Oriental society and a "functional" ruling
bureaucracy politically impermissible, no matter what the "pure
truth" might be,7 cynically admitted that their objections were in-
spired by political interests and not by scientific considerations. In
1950 the leaders of Soviet Oriental studies designated as their most
important accomplishment "the rout of the notorious theory of the
'Asiatic mode of production.' " 8
The reference to the "Asiatic mode of production" is indicative of
the kinds of difficulties that confront the Communist attack on the
theory of Oriental society. To understand them, it must be re-
membered that Marx accepted many values of the Western world,
whose modern private-property-based institutions he wished to see
destroyed. In contrast to the Soviet conception of partisanship in art
and science, Marx rejected as "shabby" and "a sin against science"
any method that subordinated scientific objectivity to an outside
interest, that of the workers included.9 And following Richard Jones
and John Stuart Mill, he began, in the early 1850's, to use the
concept of a specific Asiatic or Oriental society. Stressing particularly
the Asiatic system of economy, which he designated as the "Asiatic
mode of production," Marx upheld the "Asiatic" concept until his
death, that is, for the greater part of his adult life. Engels, despite
some temporary inconsistencies, also upheld to the end Marx' version
of the Asiatic concept. Neither Marx nor Engels clearly defined the
phenomenon of a marginal Oriental society; but from 1853 on, they
both emphasized the "semi-Asiatic" quality of Tsarist society and the
Orientally despotic character of its government.
Lenin spoke approvingly of Marx' concept of a specific Asiatic
mode of production, first in 1894 and last in 1914. Following Marx
and Engels, he recognized the significance of "Asiatic" institutions for
Tsarist Russia, whose society he viewed as "semi-Asiatic" and whose
government he considered to be despotic.10
7.
I was unaware of the political implications of a comparative study
of total power when in the winter of 1922-23 and under the in-
fluence of Max Weber I began to investigate the peculiarities of
hydraulic society and statecraft. I was unaware of it when, in 1924
and now with reference to Marx as well as Weber, I pointed to
"Asiatic" society "■ as dominated by a bureaucratically despotic
6 INTRODUCTION
state.12 I was unaware of having drawn conclusions from Marx' ver-
sion of the Asiatic concept, which Marx himself had avoided, when in
1926 and employing Marx' own socio-economic criteria, I wrote that
Chinese developments in the second half of the first millennium b.c.
made "the administrative officialdom — headed by the absolutist em-
peror— the ruling class" 13 and that this ruling class, in China as in
Egypt and India, was a "mighty hydraulic [Wasserbau] bureauc-
racy." 14 I elaborated this thesis in 1926,15 1927,18 1929," and 1931,18
impressed by Marx' insistence on an unbiased pursuit of truth.6 In
1932, a Soviet critic of my Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft Chinas de-
nounced my belief in the objectivity of science.19 It was at this time
that the Soviet publishers ceased to print my analyses of Asiatic
society in general and of Chinese society in particular.0
In the 1930's I gradually abandoned the hope that in the USSR
the nationalization of all major means of production might initiate
popular control over the government and the rise of a classless
society. Deepened understanding of the character of Soviet society
paved the way to further insights into the structure and ideology of
bureaucratic despotism. Re-examination of the Marxist-Leninist
view of Oriental society made it clear that Marx, far from originating
the "Asiatic" concept, had found it ready-made in the writings of the
classical economists. I further realized that although Marx accepted
the classical view in many important essentials, he failed to draw a
conclusion, which from the standpoint of his own theory seemed
inescapable — namely, that under the conditions of the Asiatic mode
of production the agromanagerial bureaucracy constituted the ruling
class.
Lenin's ambivalence toward the "Asiatic system" is perhaps even
more revealing. In 1906-07 Lenin admitted that the next Russian
revolution, instead of initiating a socialist society, might lead to an
b. I cited Marx' statements on this point in 1927 (Wittfogel, 1927: 296) and again in
1929 (ibid., 1929a: 581 and n. 60; see also 585).
c. My article, "Geopolitik, geographischer Materialismus und Marxismus," which
argued the importance of the natural factor for societal growth in general and for
Asiatic society in particular (see Wittfogel, 1929: 725-8) was published in Unter dem
Banner des Marxismus without editorial comment, whereas in the Russian version of
the same journal (Pod znamenem marxizma, 1929, Nos. 2/3, 6, 7/8) the editor indicated
his disagreement with some of the author's views. In 1930, the journal refused to
publish the continuation of my article, which carried farther the analysis of the natural
foundations of Asiatic society (see Wittfogel, 1932: 593 ff., 597-608). For corrections of
certain of my early views on the man-nature relationship see below, Chap. 1; cf. Chap.
9). My book Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft Chinas was translated into Russian, and the
typewritten translation was circulated among a number of Soviet experts, who were
asked to write a critical introduction. To my knowledge, such an introduction was
never written. The translation was never published.
INTRODUCTION 7
"Asiatic restoration." But when World War I opened up new pos-
sibilities for a revolutionary seizure of power, he completely dropped
the Asiatic concept, which, with oscillations, he had upheld for
twenty years. By discussing Marx' views of the state without re-
producing Marx' ideas of the Asiatic state and the Oriental despotism
of Tsarist Russia, Lenin wrote what probably is the most dishonest
book of his political career: State and Revolution. The gradual
rejection of the Asiatic concept in the USSR, which in 1938 was
climaxed by Stalin's re-editing of Marx' outstanding reference to the
Asiatic mode of production, logically followed Lenin's abandonment
of the Asiatic concept on the eve of the Bolshevik revolution.
8.
The campaign against the Asiatic concept shows the master minds
of the Communist camp unable to bolster their rejection with ra-
tional arguments. This in turn explains the oblique and primarily
negative methods with which the friends of Communist totalitarian-
ism in the non-Communist world oppose the outlawed concept. To
the uninitiated these methods, which use distortion and de-emphasis
rather than open discussion, are confusing. To the initiated they
disclose once more the scientific weakness of the most powerful attack
against the theory of Oriental (hydraulic) society.
The picture of hydraulic society given in this inquiry implies
definite concepts of societal type and development. No doubt there
is structure and cohesion in man's personal history. All individuals
base their behavior on the conviction that the regularities of yester-
day are necessarily linked to the regularities of today and tomorrow.
And there is structure and cohesion in the history of mankind. In-
dividuals and groups of individuals like to speak of institutional
units which they see operating in the present and which they expect
to operate, or to change recognizably, in the future. Agnostic with-
drawal from the problem of development therefore ceases to be
plausible as soon as it is clearly defined.
However, the absurdity of developmental agnosticism provides no
excuse for a scheme of historical change that insists on a unilinear,
irresistible, and necessarily progressive development of society. Marx'
and Engels' acceptance of Asiatic society as a separate and stationary
conformation shows the doctrinal insincerity of those who, in the
name of Marx, peddle the unilinear construct. And the comparative
study of societal conformations demonstrates the empirical un-
8 INTRODUCTION
tenability of their position. Such a study brings to light a complex
sociohistorical pattern, which includes stagnation as well as develop-
ment and diversive change and regression as well as progress. By
revealing the opportunities, and the pitfalls, of open historical situa-
tions, this concept assigns to man a profound moral responsibility,
for which the unilinear scheme, with its ultimate fatalism, has no
place.
10.
Congruent with the arguments given above, I have started my
inquiry with the societal order of which agromanagerial despotism is
a part; and I have stressed the peculiarity of this order by calling it
"hydraulic society." But I have no hesitancy in employing the tradi-
tional designations "Oriental society" and "Asiatic society" as syno-
nyms for "hydraulic society" and "agromanagerial society"; and
while using the terms "hydraulic," "agrobureaucratic," and "Oriental
despotism" interchangeably, I have given preference to the older
formulation, "Oriental despotism" in my title, partly to emphasize
the historical depth of my central concept and partly because the
majority of all great hydraulic civilizations existed in what is cus-
tomarily called the Orient. Originally I had planned to publish
this study under the title Oriental Society.
The preservation of the old nomenclature stands us in good stead
when we examine recent developments. For while there are some
traces of hydraulic society left in certain regions of Latin America,
the heritage of the old order is still very conspicuous in many coun-
tries of the Orient proper. The problem of hydraulic society in
transition is therefore primarily the problem of this area.
Under what influences and in what ways are the people of the East
throwing off the conditions of hydraulic society which they main-
tained for millennia? The significance of this question becomes
fully apparent only when we understand that Oriental despotism
atomized those nonbureaucratic groups and strata which, in feudal
Europe and Japan, spearheaded the rise of a commercial and in-
dustrial society. Nowhere, it seems, did hydraulic society, without
outside aid, make a similar advance. It was for this reason that Marx
called Asiatic society stationary and expected British rule in India
to accomplish "the only social revolution ever heard of in Asia" by
establishing there a property-based non-Asiatic society.20
Subsequent events indicate that Marx seriously overrated the
transformative strength of capitalist economy. To be sure, Western
rule in India and other Oriental countries provided new possibilities
INTRODUCTION 9
for a nontotalitarian development; but at the end of the era of
Western colonialism and despite the introduction of parliamentary
governments of various kinds, the political leaders of the Orient are
still greatly attracted by a bureaucratic-managerial policy which
keeps the state supremely strong and the nonbureaucratic and private
sector of society supremely weak.
11.
In this context, certain aspects of Russia's recent development
deserve the most careful scrutiny. The marginally Oriental civiliza-
tion of Tsarist Russia was greatly influenced by the West, though
Russia did not become a Western colony or semi-colony. Russia's
Westernization radically changed the country's political and eco-
nomic climate, and in the spring of 1917 its antitotalitarian forces
had a genuine opportunity to accomplish the anti-Asiatic social revo-
lution which Marx, in 1853, had envisaged for India. But in the fall
of 1917 these antitotalitarian forces were defeated by the Bolshevik
champions of a new totalitarian order. They were defeated because
they failed to utilize the democratic potential in a historical situation
that was temporarily open. From the standpoint of individual free-
dom and social justice, 1917 is probably the most fateful year in
modern history.
The intellectual and political leaders of non-Communist Asia, who
profess to believe in democracy and who in their majority speak
deferentially of Marx, will fulfill their historical responsibility only
if they face the despotic heritage of the Oriental world not less but
more clearly than did Marx. In the light of the Russian experience
of 1917 they should be willing to consider the issue of an "Asiatic
restoration" not only in relation to Russia but also to present-day
Asia.
12.
The masters of the modern totalitarian superstate build big and
integrated institutions, which, they say, we cannot emulate. And they
display big and integrated ideas, which, they say, we cannot match.
They are right in one respect. We do not maintain totalitarian sys-
tems of integrated power and ideology. Favorable constellations of
historical events have permitted us to avoid these monstrous de-
velopments that paralyze the search for scientific truth and social
improvement. But our opponents are wrong when they hold us in-
capable of voluntary association because we reject the disciplines of
general (state) slavery. They are wrong when they hold us incapable
lO INTRODUCTION
of producing big and structured ideas because we reject state-imposed
dogma.
Political freedom is not identical with the absence of organized
action, though our enemies would be happy if this were so. And
intellectual freedom is not identical with the absence of integrated
thought. It is only under the conditions of free discussion that
comprehensive sets of ideas can be genuinely tested.
In the recent past, scholars often gave themselves to the study of
details because they took the broad principles of life and thought
for granted. Seeing these principles threatened, they today begin to
recall that the trail blazers of modern thought viewed nature and
society as integrated orders whose architecture they explored. The
Newtons, Montesquieus, Adam Smiths, and Darwins provided new
interpretations of the world that were as spontaneous as they were
coherent, and as bold as they were competent.
You cannot fight something with nothing. In a crisis situation, any
theoretical vacuum, like any power vacuum, invites disaster. There
is no excuse for letting the enemy have things his way when our side
possesses infinite reserves of superior strength. There is no excuse
for letting the totalitarian strategists parade their contrived doctrines
on ground that is legitimately ours. There is no excuse for letting
them win the battle of ideas by default.
Scientific inquiry has its inner laws. But it earns the privilege of
freedom only when, rooted in the heritage of the past, it alertly faces
the threats of a conflict-torn present and boldly exhausts the pos-
sibilities of an open future.
CHAPTER 1
V
he natural setting of hydraulic society
A. CHANGING MAN IN CHANGING NATURE
Contrary to the popular belief that nature always remains the
same — a belief that has led to static theories of environmentalism
and to their equally static rejections — nature changes profoundly
whenever man, in response to simple or complex historical causes,
profoundly changes his technical equipment, his social organization,
and his world outlook. Man never stops affecting his natural en-
vironment. He constantly transforms it; and he actualizes a new
forces whenever his efforts carry him to a new level of operation.
Whether a new level can be attained at all, or once attained, where
it will lead, depends first on the institutional order b and second
on the ultimate target of man's activity: the physical, chemical, and
biological world accessible to him. Institutional conditions being
equal, it is the difference in the natural setting that suggests and
permits — or precludes — the development of new forms of technology,
subsistence, and social control.
A waterfall interested primitive man little except as a landmark or
an object of veneration. When sedentary man developed industry
on a sophisticated mechanical level, he actualized the motive energy
of water; and many new enterprises (mills) arose on the banks of
rushing streams. The discovery of the technical potential inherent
in coal made man geology conscious as never before, and the water
mill became a romantic survival in the revolutionized industrial
landscape dominated by the steam engine.
a. For the terms "transformation" and "actualization," as used here, see Wittfogel,
1932: 482.
b. This formulation differs from my earlier concept of the relation between man
and nature (Wittfogel, 1932: 483 ft., 712 ft.) in its emphasis on the primary importance
of institutional (and cultural) factors. From this premise follows the recognition of
man's freedom to make a genuine choice in historically open situations, a point
developed in the later part of the present chapter. Except for these corrections — which
are essential also for my criticism of certain ideas of Marx that I had previously
accepted — 1 am upholding the substance of my earlier views (see Wittfogel, 1931: 21 ff.;
ibid., 1932: 486 ff.).
12 THE NATURAL SETTING OF HYDRAULIC SOCIETY
In recent years man has uncovered the productive energies of
electricity. Again he is turning his attention to falling water. But
even when the engineer of the 20th century erects his power plant
on the very spot that previously supported a textile mill, he actualizes
new forces in the old setting. Nature acquires a new function; and
gradually it also assumes a new appearance.
B. THE HISTORICAL PLACE OF HYDRAULIC SOCIETY
What is true for the industrial scene is equally true for the agri-
cultural landscape. The hydraulic potential of the earth's water-
deficient regions is actualized only under specific historical cir-
cumstances. Primitive man has known water-deficient regions since
time immemorial; but while he depended on gathering, hunting, and
fishing, he had little need for planned water control. Only after he
learned to utilize the reproductive processes of plant life did he begin
to appreciate the agricultural possibilities of dry areas, which con-
tained sources of water supply other than on-the-spot rainfall. Only
then did he begin to manipulate the newly discovered qualities of the
old setting through small-scale irrigation farming (hydroagriculture)
and/or large-scale and government-directed farming (hydraulic agri-
culture). Only then did the opportunity arise for despotic patterns
of government and society.
The opportunity, not the necessity. Large enterprises of water
control will create no hydraulic order, if they are part of a wider
nonhydraulic nexus. The water works of the Po Plain, of Venice, and
of the Netherlands modified regional conditions; but neither North-
ern Italy nor Holland developed a hydraulic system of government
and property. Even the Mormons, who established a flourishing
hydraulic agriculture in the heart of arid North America, never
succeeded in completely eliminating the political and cultural in-
fluence of their wider industrial environment. The history of the
Latter-Day Saints illustrates both the organizational potential of
large-scale irrigation and the limitations imposed on the development
of hydraulic institutions by a dominant Western society.
Thus, too little or too much water does not necessarily lead to
governmental water control; nor does governmental water control
necessarily imply despotic methods of statecraft. It is only above the
level of an extractive subsistence economy, beyond the influence of
strong centers of rainfall agriculture, and below the level of a
property-based industrial civilization that man, reacting specifically
to the water-deficient landscape, moves toward a specific hydraulic
order of life.
CHAPTER 1, C lg
C. THE NATURAL SETTING
1. Historical Conditions Being Equal, a Major
Natural Difference the Possible Cause of
Decisive Institutional Differences
Many factors differentiated agrarian life prior to the industrial age,
but none equaled in institutional significance the stimulating con-
tradictions offered by arid areas possessing accessible sources of
water supply other than on-the-spot rainfall. Under the just-defined
conditions of pre-industriai agriculture, this natural configuration
decisively affected man's behavior as a provider of food and organizer
of human relations. If he wanted to cultivate dry but potentially
fertile lands permanently and rewardingly, he had to secure a re-
liable flow of moisture. Of all tasks imposed by the natural environ-
ment, it was the task imposed by a precarious water situation that
stimulated man to develop hydraulic methods of social control.
2. Several Natural Factors Essential to Farming
Water is not the only natural factor essential for successful crop
raising. Anyone wishing to farm must have at his disposal useful
plants, an arable soil, adequate humidity, appropriate temperature
(sufficient sun and a proper growing season), and a suitable lay of the
land (relief, surface).0
All these elements are equally essential. The lack of any one of
them destroys the agronomic value of all the others. Cultivation
remains impossible unless human action can compensate for the
total deficiency of any essential factor.
3. Some Essential Factors Defy Compensating
Action; Others Respond More Readily
The effectiveness of man's compensating action depends on the
ease with which a lacking natural factor can be replaced. Some factors
must be considered constants because, under existing technological
conditions, they are for all practical purposes beyond man's control.
Others are more pliable. Man may manipulate or, if necessary, change
them.
Temperature and surface are the outstanding constant elements
of the agricultural landscape. This was true for the premachine age;
and it is still essentially true today. Pre-industrial attempts to change
a. For similar attempts at defining the natural factors basic to agriculture see CM:
125; SM: 753; Widtsoe, 1928: 19 ff.; Buck, 1937: 101.
14 THE NATURAL SETTING OF HYDRAULIC SOCIETY
the temperature of farming areas have, for obvious reasons, met with
no success; and even such achievements as central heating and air
conditioning have wrought no major change. Still less has man
succeeded in altering the cosmic circumstances which ultimately
determine the temperature of the earth.
The lay of the land has equally defied human effort. Man has
made many minor adjustments such as leveling or terracing — most
frequently, it would seem, in connection with operations of hydro-
agriculture. But before modern power machines and high explosives
were invented, the globe's relief remained fundamentally unaltered.
Even machine-promoted agriculture, like the technically less ad-
vanced forms of farming, prospers on the even surfaces of lowlands
and high plateaus or on gently graded slopes and hills, and not in
rugged mountainous terrain.
Vegetation and soil do not resist human action to any comparable
degree. The farmer professionally manipulates plants and soils.
He may transfer useful plants to regions lacking them, and he
frequently does so. However, such action is sporadic and temporary;
it ceases when the limited objective is achieved. In a given agri-
cultural area the operations of crop breeding are repeated again and
again; but the plants cover the ground discontinuously, and although
under certain circumstances farm labor may be coordinated in work
teams, there is nothing in the nature of the individual plants or plant
aggregates which necessitates large-scale cooperation as a prerequisite
for successful cultivation. Before the machine age the greater part of
all agriculture proceeded most effectively when individual husband-
men or small groups of husbandmen attended to the crops.
The second variable factor, soil, follows a similar pattern, with
special limitations dictated by the relative heaviness of pulverized
mineral substance. While seeds or plants have frequently been trans-
ferred to deficient areas, soil has rarely been moved to barren regions.
No doubt, poor or useless fields have been improved by bringing bet-
ter soil from a distance. But such action is of little consequence for
the character of any major farming area.1 Man's efforts seek primarily
to adjust the existing soil to the needs of the crops by hoeing, digging,
or plowing, and on occasion by improving its chemical composition
through the application of fertilizers.
Thus soil is susceptible to manipulation, but to a type of manipula-
tion that requires work groups no larger than are necessary for the
cultivation of the plants. Even when, under primitive conditions,
the clearing of the ground and the gathering of the harvest are under-
taken by large teams, the actual task of tilling the fields is usually
left to one or a few individuals.
CHAPTER I, D Ig
4. The Specific Qualities of Water
Compared with all other essential natural prerequisites of agri-
culture, water is specific. Temperature and surface, because of their
respective cosmic and geological dimensions, have completely pre-
cluded or strikingly limited human action throughout the pre-
industrial era and afterward. In contrast, water is neither too remote
nor too massive to permit manipulation by man. In this regard it
resembles two other variables, vegetation and soil. But it differs
greatly from both in its susceptibility to movement and in the
techniques required to handle it.
Water is heavier than most plants. It can nevertheless be much
more conveniently managed. Unhampered by the cohesiveness of
solid matter and following the law of gravity, water flows auto-
matically to the lowest accessible point in its environment. Within
a given agricultural landscape, water is the natural variable par
excellence.
And this is not all. Flowing automatically, water appears unevenly
in the landscape, gathering either below the surface as ground water,
or above the surface in separate cavities (holes, ponds, lakes), or
continuous beds (streams, rivers). Such formations are of minor
significance in an agricultural area enjoying ample precipitation,
but they become immensely important in the water-deficient land-
scape. The human operator who has to handle water deals with a
substance that is not only more mobile than other agronomic vari-
ables, but also more bulky.
This last quality presents special difficulties whenever man tries to
utilize large agglomerations of moisture; and this he is prone to do
whenever natural and technological conditions permit. No opera-
tional necessity compels him to manipulate either soil or plants in
cooperation with many others. But the bulkiness of all except the
smallest sources of water supply creates a technical task which is
solved either by mass labor or not at all.
D. MUST THE HYDRAULIC POTENTIAL BE
ACTUALIZED?
1. An Open Historical Situation — but
Recognizable Patterns of Response
The stimulating contradiction inherent in a potentially hydraulic
landscape is manifest. Such a landscape has an insufficient rainfall
or none at all; but it possesses other accessible sources of water
supply. If man decides to utilize them, he may transform dry lands
l6 THE NATURAL SETTING OF HYDRAULIC SOCIETY
into fertile fields and gardens. He may, but will he? What makes him
engage in a venture which involves great effort and which is fraught
with highly problematic institutional consequences?
Historical evidence reveals that numerous groups of persons have
made this decision. Yet it also reveals that many others have failed to
do so. Over millennia, tribal gatherers, hunters, fishermen, and
pastoralists inhabited potentially hydraulic regions, often in close
proximity to irrigation farmers, but few abandoned their traditional
occupations for a hydroagricultural way of life.
Manifestly, no irresistible necessity compelled man to utilize the
new natural opportunities. The situation was open, and the hydro-
agricultural course was only one of several possible choices. Never-
theless, man took this course so frequently and in so many separate
areas that we may assume regularity in evaluation as well as in
procedure.
Man pursues recognized advantage. Whenever internal or external
causes suggest a change in technology, material production, or social
relations, he compares the merits of the existing situation with the
advantages — and disadvantages — that may accrue from the con-
templated change. Special effort is required to attain the new ob-
jective; and this effort may involve not only increased work and a
shift from pleasant to unpleasant operations, but also social and
cultural adjustments, including a more or less serious loss of personal
and political independence.
When the sum total of the accruing benefits clearly and con-
vincingly exceeds the required sacrifices, man is willing to make the
change; but problematic advantage usually leaves him cool. Here, as
elsewhere, the human budget is compounded of material and non-
material items; any attempt to formulate it exclusively in terms of
smaller or larger quantities of things (goods) will prove unsatis-
factory. To be sure, the material factor weighs heavily, but its relative
importance can be reasonably defined only when full recognition is
given to such other values as personal safety, absence of oppression,
and time-honored patterns of thought and action.
Culture historians have made much of the fact that during the
"recent" epoch of geozoology x clusters of persons adopted agricul-
ture, either as a supplementary occupation or, and increasingly, as
their main subsistence economy. No doubt this transition pro-
foundly affected the fate of mankind; but any reference to the law
of recognized advantage must take into account the many primitive
groups that did not turn to crop-raising either during the days of
incipient agriculture or after the rise of powerful and stratified
agrarian civilizations.
The agrarian alternative had a limited — and very diverse — appeal
CHAPTER 1, D 17
to nonfarming groups when cultivation was primitive and leadership
not overly demanding. After the emergence of stratified agricultural
societies, choice became even more serious. The authority wielded
by the governments and wealthy landowners of nearby agrarian
states acted as a deterrent, for under these conditions a shift might
involve submission to distasteful methods of political and proprietary
control. Often women, children, and war captives tilled some few
fields close to a camp site; but the dominant members of the tribe,
the adult males, stubbornly refused to abandon their hunting, fish-
ing, or herding activities. The many primitive peoples who endured
lean years and even long periods of famine without making the
crucial changeover to agriculture demonstrate the immense attrac-
tion of nonmaterial values, when increased material security can be
attained only at the price of political, economic, and cultural sub-
mission.
2. The Recognized Advantages of Irrigation
Agriculture
The transition to irrigation farming poses the problem of choice in a
still more complex form. The primary choice — whether or not to
start hydroagriculture where it had not been known previously —
was generally, though perhaps not exclusively, made by groups
familiar with the techniques of primitive rainfall farming.
The secondary (derivative) choice — whether or not to emulate an
established irrigation economy — confronts the traditional rainfall
farmer as well as the nonagricultural tribesman. But the nonagricul-
turist is much less prepared technically and culturally to make this
shift; and in both cases decision becomes more precarious when
acceptance of a materially attractive irrigation economy involves
reduction to an abjectly low social and political status.
It is obviously for this reason that a number of communities
practicing rainfall farming in Southwest China, India, and Meso-
America as well as many tribal hunters, fishermen, and herders on the
fringe of the hydroagricultural world failed to make the change. The
fate of those who rejected the ambivalent opportunity varied greatly;
but whatever their subsequent fortunes, history offered most of them
a genuine choice, and man proceeded not as the passive instrument
of an irresistible and unilinear developmental force but as a dis-
criminating being, actively participating in shaping his future.
a. If ... , then . . .
Irrigation farming always requires more physical effort than rain-
fall farming performed under comparable conditions. But it requires
l8 THE NATURAL SETTING OF HYDRAULIC SOCIETY
radical social and political adjustments only in a special geohistorical
setting. Strictly local tasks of digging, damming, and water distribu-
tion can be performed by a single husbandman, a single family, or a
small group of neighbors, and in this case no far-reaching organiza-
tional steps are necessary. Hydroagriculture, farming based on small-
scale irrigation, increases the food supply, but it does not involve
the patterns of organization and social control that characterize
hydraulic agriculture and Oriental despotism.
These patterns come into being when an experimenting com-
munity of farmers or protofarmers finds large sources of moisture in
a dry but potentially fertile area. If irrigation farming depends on
the effective handling of a major supply of water, the distinctive
quality of water — its tendency to gather in bulk — becomes in-
stitutionally decisive. A large quantity of water can be channeled
and kept within bounds only by the use of mass labor; and this mass
labor must be coordinated, disciplined, and led. Thus a number of
farmers eager to conquer arid lowlands and plains are forced to
invoke the organizational devices which — on the basis of premachine
technology — offer the one chance of success: they must work in co-
operation with their fellows and subordinate themselves to a direct-
ing authority.
Again history followed no unilinear course dictated by unavoid-
able necessity. There were recognized alternatives; and those who
were faced with them were able to make a genuine choice. But what-
ever their decisions, they were made within a framework that offered
only a limited number of workable possibilities.
Thus the changeover to hydraulic agriculture, or its rejection, was
not without order or direction. The various decisions displayed
regularities in conditioning and motivation. But the relative equality
of the original choices did not imply a relative equality in the final
results. The majority of all hunters, fishermen, and rainfall farmers
who preserved their traditional way of life were reduced to in-
significance, if they were not completely annihilated. Some groups,
practicing a mixed economy with little or no hydroagriculture, were
strong enough to impose their will on adjacent hydraulic civilizations.
The herders came into their own at a relatively late time and in
a special geohistorical setting. Often they maintained themselves
against all manner of agriculturists, and in a number of instances
they engaged in sweeping offensives, accomplishing conquests that
profoundly modified the political and social structure of the subdued
agrarian civilizations.
The representatives of rainfall farming made history in certain
areas of the West, which was uniquely suited to this type of economy.
CHAPTER 1, D ig
But the hydraulic agriculturists outgrew and outfought the majority
of all neighboring peoples wherever local conditions and interna-
tional circumstances one-sidedly favored an agromanagerial economy
and statecraft.
The pioneers of hydraulic agriculture, like the pioneers of rainfall
farming, were unaware of the ultimate consequences of their choice.
Pursuing recognized advantage, they initiated an institutional de-
velopment which led far beyond the starting point. Their heirs and
successors built colossal political and social structures; but they did
so at the cost of many of those freedoms which the conservative
dissenters endeavored and, in part, were able to preserve.
b. Arid, Semi-arid, and Humid Areas: Hypothetical Patterns
of Interaction and Growth
In their pursuit of recognized advantage, rainfall farmers ex-
perimented with hydroagriculture not only in desert-like areas of
full aridity and steppe-like areas of semi-aridity, but also in humid
areas suitable to the cultivation of useful aquatic plants, above all
rice.
The first two types of landscapes, taken together, cover almost
three-fifths 2 — and all three possibly something like two-thirds — of
the globe's surface. Within this area each of the three types of
potentially hydraulic landscapes may have played a specific role,
particularly in the formative period of a hydraulic economy. In
a major sector comprising all three types, the semi-arid regions
are highly suitable to small and gradually growing enterprises of
water control. The arid regions provide an ultimate testing ground
for the new techniques. And the semi-arid and humid regions profit
further from the technical and organizational experience gained in
man's victory over the desert.
This may well have been the sequence in the spread of hydraulic
agriculture in such widely separated areas as ancient Mesopotamia,
India, and the western zone of South America. A different order of
development is probable for landscapes that are homogeneously
arid, and still another for those that are predominantly semi-arid.
In each case, the presence or absence of adjacent humid regions
complicated the pattern of growth. In Egypt, gatherers, hunters, and
fishermen seem to have practiced agriculture as a subsidiary oc-
cupation on the naturally flooded banks of the Nile long before
farming became the primary pursuit. In Meso-America ° and in
a. Some twenty years ago I considered Aztec Mexico, like pre-Tokugawa Japan, a
feudal society with small-scale irrigation (Wittfogel, 1932: 587 ft). On the basis of a
20 THE NATURAL SETTING OF HYDRAULIC SOCIETY
China diffusion (from South America and Inner or South Asia
respectively) cannot be excluded. But such external stimulation
need not have occurred; if it did, it was effective only because the
rainfall farmers in the "stimulated" areas were ready to recognize
the advantages of the new technique.
growing familiarity with the early sources I came to recognize the hydraulic character
of the core areas of pre-Spanish Mexico; and the recent work of Mexican archaeologists
and historians fortifies me in my conclusion (see Armillas, 1948: 109; ibid., 1951: 24 ft.;
Palerm, 1952: 184 ff.). I quote particularly from a study by Palerm which provides a
wealth of historical data on irrigation in both pre-Spanish and early Spanish Meso-
America:
4. The majority of the irrigation systems seem to have been only of local
importance and did not require large hydraulic undertakings. Nevertheless, im-
portant works were undertaken in the Valley of Mexico, and irrigation appears
in concentrated form in the headwaters of the rivers Tula, Lerma and Atlixco,
and in the contiguous area of Colima- Jalisco.
5. The largest concentrations and most important works of irrigation coincide,
generally, with the greatest density of population, with the distribution of the
most important urban centers, and with the nuclei of political power and military
expansion [Palerm, 1954: 71].
How far back can we trace hydraulic activities in Meso-America? Armillas believes
that the great cultural advance in the Hohokam civilization of Arizona (a.d. 500-900)
was probably due to the construction of irrigation canals, a fact which is archaeologi-
cally established. And since the remains point to relations between Hohokam and
Meso-America, he believes that "the same factor may underlie the cultural develop-
ment in certain areas of western Meso-America during this period" (Armillas, 1948:
107). The Hohokam data tie in with the "classical" period of Meso-American history,
which, in the Mexican lake area, probably began in the early centuries of the first
millennium a.d. Armillas' assumption is reinforced by a recent pollen analysis, which
suggests that aridity increased during the late "archaic" period (Sears, 1951: 59 ff.).
Palerm has stated that this climatic change may have caused "the emergence or
extension of irrigation" in Meso-America (1955: 35).
Increasing aridity could explain the appearance of concentrated populations and
the spread of monumental building in Meso-America. But what we know about
climatic conditions in postglacial times warns against overrating the significance of
Sears' valuable findings. The spread of monumental building in Meso-America during
the early part of the first millennium a.d. may well have been due to less rain and
more irrigation; but this does not mean that, prior to the "classical" period, precipita-
tion was sufficiently regular to make recourse to irrigation unnecessary. In fact, recent
excavations by A. Palerm and E. Wolf point to the existence of hydraulic activities in
the Mexican lake area by the middle of the first millennium b.c.
Other investigations undertaken by these two anthropologists indicate a relatively
late date for the building of comprehensive water works by the territorial state of
Texcoco, which, when the Spaniards arrived, was second only to Mexico. Manifestly,
acceptance of the lateness of this development involves no rejection of the earlier
occurrence of hydraulic activities in other sections of the lake area. Rather, the data
suggest that Texcoco moved slowly from marginal to more central hydraulic condi-
tions. (For the problem of changing hydraulic density, see below, Chap. 6.)
CHAPTER 1, D 21
In ancient China the semi-arid North and the rice-growing South
established noteworthy forms of interaction. The ancient Yangtze
states developed early and perhaps under the influence of the rice
culture of Southeast Asia; but it was the semi-arid North which,
over a long period of time, constituted the dominant center of power
and cultural advance in Eastern Asia. In India the arid, semi-arid,
and humid regions of the North became historically prominent
before the excessively humid area of Bengal.
These developmental sequences are presented as hypotheses. Their
validity, or lack of validity, is of no consequence to our analysis of
societal structure. They are worth noting, in the main, because on
the basis of our present archaeological and prehistorical knowledge
they suggest a highly dynamic interplay between the various types
of landscapes which combine to form the larger areas of hydraulic
civilization.
CHAPTER 2
ydraulic economy— a managerial and
genuinely political economy
The characteristics of hydraulic economy are many, but three
are paramount. Hydraulic agriculture involves a specific type of divi-
sion of labor, It intensifies cultivation. And it necessitates coopera-
tion on a large scale. The third characteristic has been described
by a number of students of Oriental farming. The second has been
frequently noted, but rarely analyzed. The first has been given
practically no attention. This neglect is particularly unfortunate,
since the hydraulic patterns of organization and operation have
decisively affected the managerial role of the hydraulic state.
Economists generally consider the division of labor and coopera-
tion key prerequisites of modern industry, but they find them almost
completely lacking in farming.0 Their claim reflects the conditions
of Western rainfall agriculture. For this type of agriculture it is
indeed by and large correct.
However, the economists do not as a rule so limit themselves.
Speaking of agriculture without any geographical or institutional
qualification, they give the impression that their thesis, being uni-
versally valid, applies to hydraulic as well as to hydroagriculture and
rainfall farming. Comparative examination of the facts quickly dis-
closes the fallacy of this contention.
a. For early formulations of this view see Smith, 1937: 6; Mill, 1909: 131, 144; Marx,
DK, I: 300, 322 ff. Modern economists have perpetuated and even sharpened them.
Writes Seligman (1914: 350): "In the immense domain of agricultural production the
possibility of combination is almost entirely eliminated." And Marshall (1946: 290):
"In agriculture there is not much division of labour, and there is no production on
a very large scale."
88
CHAPTER 2, A 23
A. DIVISION OF LABOR IN
HYDRAULIC AGRICULTURE
1. Preparatory and Protective Operations
Separated from Farming Proper
What is true for modern industry — that production proper depends
on a variety of preparatory and protective operations 6 — has been true
for hydraulic agriculture since its beginnings. The peculiarity of
the preparatory and protective hydraulic operations is an essential
aspect of the peculiarity of hydraulic agriculture.
a. Large-scale Preparatory Operations [Purpose: Irrigation)
The combined agricultural activities of an irrigation farmer are
comparable to the combined agricultural activities of a rainfall
farmer. But the operations of the former include types of labor
(on-the-spot ditching, damming, and watering) that are absent in the
operations of the latter. The magnitude of this special type of labor
can be judged from the fact that in a Chinese village a peasant may
spend from 20 to over 50 per cent of his work time irrigating, and
that in many Indian villages irrigation is the most time-consuming
single item in the farmer's budget.1
Hydroagriculture (small-scale irrigation farming) involves a high
intensity of cultivation on irrigated fields — and often also on non-
irrigated fields.2 But it does not involve a division of labor on a
communal, territorial, or national level. Such a work pattern occurs
only when large quantities of water have to be manipulated. Where-
ever, in pre-industrial civilizations, man gathered, stored, and con-
ducted water on a large scale, we find the conspicuous division be-
tween preparatory (feeding) and ultimate labor characteristic of all
hydraulic agriculture.
b. Large-scale Protective Operations (Purpose: Flood Control)
But the fight against the disastrous consequences of too little water
may involve a fight against the disastrous consequences of too much
water. The potentially most rewarding areas of hydraulic farming
b. For the concept of "previous or preparatory labor" see Mill 1909: 29, 31. The
general principle was already indicated by Smith (1937), who, when discussing the di-
vision of operations in industry, pointed to the "growers of the flax and the wool"
and the miners as providers of raw material (5 ff., 11), to the spinners and weavers as
engaged in special processing operations (6), and to the makers of tools as combining
elements of both procedures (11). Mill (1909: 36 ff.) also includes, in the category of
previous labor, activities aimed at protecting industrial production proper.
24 A MANAGERIAL POLITICAL ECONOMY
are arid and semi-arid plains and humid regions suitable for aquatic
crops, such as rice, that are sufficiently low-lying to permit watering
from nearby rivers. These rivers usually have their sources in
remote mountains, and they rise substantially as the summer sun
melts part of the snow accumulated there.
Upstream developments of this kind cause annual inundations in
Egypt, Mesopotamia, Turkestan, India, China, and in the Andean
and Mexican zones of America. In semi-arid areas on-the-spot rains
create additional dangers when they are overconcentrated (con-
vectional) or irregular. This condition prevails in North China,
northern Mesopotamia (Assyria), and the Mexican lake region. Thus
a hydraulic community that resorts to preparatory labor to safe-
guard the productive use of water may also have to resort to pro-
tective labor to safeguard its crops from periodic and excessive
inundations.
When, in protohistorical times, the Chinese began to cultivate the
great plains of North China, they quickly recognized that the centers
of greatest potential fertility were also the centers of greatest po-
tential destruction. To quote John Lossing Buck: "Geologically
speaking, man has settled these plains thousands of years before they
were ready for occupation. . . ." 3 The Chinese built huge em-
bankments which, although unable to remove entirely the risk
inhering in the ambivalent situation, matched and even surpassed
in magnitude the area's preparatory (feeding) works.*
In India enormous problems of flood control are posed by the
Indus River 8 and, in a particularly one-sided way, by the Ganges
and Brahmaputra Rivers, which in Bengal create optimal conditions
for the cultivation of rice and maximal dangers from floods. By
1900 Bengal boasted ninety-seven miles of larger irrigation canals
and 1,298 miles of embankments.6
In ancient Mesopotamia even watchful rulers could not com-
pletely prevent the inundations from damaging the densely settled
plains.7 In Turkestan excessive floods periodically threatened the
Zarafshan River Valley.8 In Upper Egypt the Nile, in very high flood,
rises one meter above the level of the settled countryside, in Middle
Egypt two meters, and in the Delta area up to three and a half
meters.9 The inhabitants of the lake area of Mexico could benefit
from its fertility only if they accepted the periodic overflow of its
short, irregular, narrow streams,10 which they sought to control
through a variety of protective works. Thus in virtually all major
hydraulic civilizations, preparatory (feeding) works for the purpose
of irrigation are supplemented by and interlocked with protective
works for the purpose of flood control.
chapter 2, a 25
2. Cooperation
A study of the hydraulic patterns of China (especially North China),
India, Turkestan, Mesopotamia (especially Assyria), Egypt, or Meso-
America (especially the Mexican lake region) must therefore con-
sider both forms of agrohydraulic activities. Only by proceeding in
such a way can we hope to determine realistically the dimension
and character of their organizational key device: cooperation.
a. Dimension
When a hydraulic society covers only a single locality, all adult
males may be assigned to one or a few communal work teams. Vary-
ing needs and circumstances modify the size of the mobilized labor
force. In hydraulic countries having several independent sources of
water supply, the task of controlling the moisture is performed by a
number of separated work teams.
Among the Hill Suk of East Africa, "every male must assist
in making the ditches."11 In almost all Pueblos "irrigation or clean-
ing a spring is work for all." 12 Among the Chagga, the maintenance
of a relatively elaborate irrigation system is assured by "the participa-
tion of the entire people." 13 In Bali the peasants are obliged to
render labor service for the hydraulic regional unit, the subak, to
which they belong.14 The masters of the Sumerian temple economy
expected every adult male within their jurisdiction "to participate
in the digging and cleaning of the canals." 15 Most inscriptions of
Pharaonic Egypt take this work pattern for granted. Only occasionally
does a text specify the character of the universally demanded ac-
tivities, among which lifting and digging are outstanding.16
In imperial China every commoner family was expected on de-
mand to provide labor for hydraulic and other public services. The
political and legal writings of India indicate a similar claim on
corviable labor.17 The laws of Inca Peru obliged all able-bodied men
to render corvee service.18 In ancient Mexico both commoner and
upper-class adolescents were instructed in the techniques of digging
and damming.19 At times the masters of this hydraulic area levied
the manpower of several territorial states for their gigantic hydraulic
enterprises.20
In 19th-century Egypt "the whole corviable population" worked
in four huge shifts on Mehmed Ali's hydraulic installations. Each
group labored on the canals for forty-five days until, after 180
days, the job was completed.21 From 1881 on, at a time of decay and
disintegration, "the whole of the corvee fell on the poorest classes," 22
the smaller number being compensated for by an increase in the
26 A MANAGERIAL POLITICAL ECONOMY
labor-time to ninety days. In some regions the conscripts were kept
busy "for 180 days."
23
b. Integration
Orderly cooperation involves planned integration. Such integra-
tion is especially necessary when the objectives are elaborate and the
cooperating teams large.
Above the tribal level, hydraulic activities are usually compre-
hensive. Most writers who mention the cooperative aspect of hy-
draulic agriculture think in the main of digging, dredging, and
damming; and the organizational tasks involved in these labors is
certainly considerable. But the planners of a major hydraulic enter-
prise are confronted with problems of a much more complex kind.
How many persons are needed? And where can such persons be
found? On the basis of previously made registers, the planners must
determine the quota and criteria of selection. Notification follows
selection, and mobilization notification. The assembled groups fre-
quently proceed in quasimilitary columns. Having reached their
destination, the buck privates of the hydraulic army must be dis-
tributed in proper numbers and according to whatever division of
operations (spading, carrying of mud, etc.) is customary. If raw
materials such as straw, fagots, lumber, or stone have to be procured,
auxiliary operations are organized; and if the work teams — in toto
or in part — must be provided with food and drink, still other ways
of appropriation, transport, and distribution have to be developed.
Even in its simplest form, agrohydraulic operations necessitate sub-
stantial integrative action. In their more elaborate variations, they
involve extensive and complex organizational planning.
c. Leadership
All teamwork requires team leaders; and the work of large inte-
grated teams requires on-the-spot leaders and disciplinarians as well
as over-all organizers and planners. The great enterprises of hydraulic
agriculture involve both types of direction. The foreman usually
performs no menial work at all; and except for a few engineering
specialists the sergeants and officers of the labor force are essentially
organizers.
To be sure, the physical element — including threats of punish-
ment and actual coercion — is never absent. But here, if anywhere, re-
corded experience and calculated foresight are crucial. It is the cir-
cumspection, resourcefulness, and integrative skill of the supreme
CHAPTER 2, B 27
leader and his aides which play the decisive role in initiating, accom-
plishing, and perpetuating the major works of hydraulic economy.
d. Hydraulic Leadership — Political Leadership
i
The effective management of these works involves an organizational
web which covers either the whole, or at least the dynamic core, of
the country's population. In consequence, those who control this net-
work are uniquely prepared to wield supreme political power.
From the standpoint of the historical effect, it makes no difference
whether the heads of a hydraulic government were originally peace
chiefs, war leaders, priests, priest-chiefs, or hydraulic officials sans
phrase. Among the Chagga, the hydraulic corvee is called into action
by the same horn that traditionally rallied the tribesmen for war.24
Among the Pueblo Indians the war chiefs (or priests), although sub-
ordinated to the cacique (the supreme chief), direct and supervise the
communal activities.25 The early hydraulic city states of Mesopotamia
seem to have been for the most part ruled by priest-kings. In China
the legendary trail blazer of governmental water control, the Great
Yii, is said to have risen from the rank of a supreme hydraulic func-
tionary to that of king, becoming, according to protohistorical rec-
ords, the founder of the first hereditary dynasty, Hsia.
No matter whether traditionally nonhydraulic leaders initiated or
seized the incipient hydraulic "apparatus," or whether the masters of
this apparatus became the motive force behind all important public
functions,0 there can be no doubt that in all these cases the resulting
regime was decisively shaped by the leadership and social control re-
quired by hydraulic agriculture.
B. HEAVY WATER WORKS AND HEAVY INDUSTRY
With regard to operational form, hydraulic agriculture exhibits
important similarities to heavy industry. Both types of economic ac-
tivities are preparatory to the ultimate processes of production. Both
c. Riistow, who in general accepts Kern's view concerning the correlation between
large-scale and government-directed water control and the centralized and despotic char-
acter of the state in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, assumes that in these areas
nomadic conquerors developed the hydraulic works after establishing conquest em-
pires (Riistow, OG, I: 306).
Patterns of leadership and discipline traditional to conquering groups could be, and
probably were, invoked in establishing certain hydraulic governments; but Pueblo,
Chagga, and Hawaiian society show that such formative patterns could also be en-
dogenous. In any case, the ethnographic and historical facts point to a multiple rather
than a single origin for hydraulic societies.
28 A MANAGERIAL POLITICAL ECONOMY
provide the workers with essential material for these ultimate proc-
esses. And both tend to be comprehensive, "heavy." For these rea-
sons the large enterprises of hydraulic agriculture may be designated
as "heavy water works."
But the dissimilarities are as illuminating as the similarities. The
heavy water works of hydraulic agriculture and the heavy industry
of modern economy are distinguished by a number of basic differ-
ences, which, properly denned, may aid us in more clearly recogniz-
ing the peculiarities of hydraulic society.
Heavy water works feed the ultimate agrarian producer one cru-
cial auxiliary material: water; heavy industry provides auxiliary and
raw materials of various kinds, including tools for finishing and heavy
industry. Heavy water works fulfill important protective functions
for the country at large; the protective installations (buildings, etc.)
of industry do not. Heavy water works cover at their inception a rel-
atively large area; and with the development of the hydraulic order
they are usually spread still further. The operations of heavy indus-
try are spatially much more restricted. At first, and for a number of
preliminary processes, they may depend on small and dispersed shops;
with the growth of the industrial order they tend to merge into one,
or a few, major establishments.
The character of the labor force varies with these spatial and op-
erational differences. Heavy water works are best served by a widely
distributed personnel, whereas heavy industry requires the workers
to reside near the locally restricted "big" enterprises which employ
them. The hydraulic demand is satisfied by adult peasant males, who
continue to reside in their respective villages; whereas the industrial
demand is satisfied by a geographically concentrated labor force.
The bulk of the hydraulic workers are expected to remain peas-
ants, and in most cases they are mobilized for a relatively short
period only — at best for a few days, at worst for any time that will
not destroy their agricultural usefulness. Thus division of agrohy-
draulic labor is not accompanied by a corresponding division of
laborers.
The contrast to the labor policy of heavy industry is manifest. Dif-
ferent from heavy water works, which may be created and maintained
during a fraction of the year, heavy industry operates most effectively
when it operates continuously. The industrial employers prefer to
occupy their personnel throughout the year; and with the growth of
the industrial system full-time labor became the rule. Thus division
of industrial labor moves toward a more or less complete division of
laborers.
The two sectors are also differently administered. In the main,
CHAPTER 2, C 29
modern heavy industry is directed by private owners or managers.
The heavy water works of hydraulic agriculture are directed es-
sentially by the government. The government also engages in certain
other large enterprises, which, in varying combinations, supplement
the agrohydraulic economy proper.
C. CALENDAR MAKING AND ASTRONOMY— IMPOR-
TANT FUNCTIONS OF THE HYDRAULIC REGIME
Among the intellectual functions fulfilled by the leaders of agro-
hydraulic activities, some are only indirectly connected with the
organization of men and material; but the relation is highly signifi-
cant nevertheless. Time keeping and calendar making are essential
for the success of all hydraulic economies; and under special con-
ditions special operations of measuring and calculating may be
urgently needed.1 The way in which these tasks are executed affect
both the political and the cultural development of hydraulic society.
To be sure, man is deeply concerned about the swing of the seasons
under all forms of extractive economy and throughout the agrarian
world. But in most cases he is content to determine in a general way
when spring or summer begin, when cold will set in, when rain or
snow will fall. In hydraulic civilizations such general knowledge is
insufficient. In areas of full aridity it is crucial to be prepared for
the rise of the rivers whose overflow, properly handled, brings
fertility and life and whose unchecked waters leave death and
devastation in their wake. The dikes have to be repaired in the
proper season so that they will hold in times of inundation; and
the canals have to be cleaned so that the moisture will be satis-
factorily distributed. In semi-arid areas receiving a limited or uneven
rainfall an accurate calendar is similarly important. Only when the
embankments, canals, and reservoirs are ready and in good condition
can the scanty precipitation be fully utilized.
The need for reallocating the periodically flooded fields and
determining the dimension and bulk of hydraulic and other struc-
tures provide continual stimulation for developments in geometry
and arithmetic. Herodotus ascribes the beginnings of geometry in
Egypt to the need for annually remeasuring the inundated land.2
No matter whether the earliest scientific steps in this direction were
made in the Nile Valley or in Mesopotamia, the basic correlation is
eminently plausible. Obviously the pioneers and masters of hydraulic
civilization were singularly well equipped to lay the foundations for
two major and interrelated sciences: astronomy and mathematics.
As a rule, the operations of time keeping and scientific measuring
30 A MANAGERIAL POLITICAL ECONOMY
and counting were performed by official dignitaries or by priestly
(or secular) specialists attached to the hydraulic regime. Wrapped in
a cloak of magic and astrology and hedged with profound secrecy,
these mathematical and astronomical operations became the means
both for improving hydraulic production and bulwarking the
superior power of the hydraulic leaders.
D. FURTHER CONSTRUCTION ACTIVITIES
CUSTOMARY IN HYDRAULIC SOCIETIES
The masters of the hydraulic state did not confine their activities to
matters immediately connected with agriculture. The methods of
cooperation which were so effective in the sphere of crop-raising
were easily applied to a variety of other large tasks.
Certain types of works are likely to precede others. Generally
speaking, the irrigation canal is older than the navigation canal; and
hydraulic digging and damming occurred prior to the building of
highways. But often derivative steps were taken before the original
activities had progressed far, and different regional conditions favored
different evolutionary sequences. Thus the divergencies of inter-
action and growth are great. They include many constructional
activities ab©ve and beyond the sphere of hydraulic agriculture.*
1. NONAGRARIAN HYDRAULIC WORKS
a. Aqueducts and Reservoirs Providing Drinking Water
A commonwealth able to transfer water for purposes of irriga-
tion readily applies its hydraulic know-how to the providing of
drinking water. The need for such action was slight in the greater
part of Medieval Europe, where the annual precipitation furnished
sufficient ground water for the wells on which most towns depended
for their water supply.1
Even in the hydraulic world, drinking water is not necessarily
an issue. Wherever rivers, streams, or springs carry enough moisture
a. Anyone interested in studying the technical and organizational details of a major
hydraulic order may consult Willcocks' admirable description of irrigation and flood
control in 19th-century Egypt (Willcocks, 1889: passim). A comprehensive survey of the
hydraulic conditions in India at the close of the 19th century has been made by the
Indian Irrigation Commission (RRCAI). In my study of Chinese economics and society
I have systematically analyzed the ecological foundations and the various aspects of
China's traditional hydraulic order (Wittfogel, 1931: 61-93, 188-300, and 410-56). Today
we also have an archaeological account of the growth of hydraulic and other construc-
tions over time and for a limited, but evidently, representative area: the Virii Valley
in Peru (see Willey, 1953: 344-89)-
CHAPTER 2, D £1
to satisfy the drinking needs of the population throughout the year,
no major problem arises. The inhabitants of the Nile and Ganges
Valleys and of many similar areas did not have to construct elaborate
aqueducts for this purpose.
The irregular flow of rivers or streams or the relatively easy access
to fresh and clear mountain water has stimulated in many hydraulic
landscapes the construction of comprehensive installations for the
storage and distribution of drinking water. In America great aque-
ducts were built by the hydraulic civilizations of the Andean zone
and Meso-America.2 The many reservoirs (tanks) of Southern India
frequently serve several uses; but near the large residential centers
the providing of drinking water is usually paramount. In certain
areas of the Near East, such as Syria and Assyria, brilliantly designed
aqueducts have satisfied the water needs of many famous cities,
Tyre,3 Antioch,4 and Nineveh 5 among them. In the Western world
of rainfall agriculture, aqueducts were built primarily by such
Mediterranean peoples as the Greeks and the Romans, who since
the dawn of history maintained contact with — and learned from —
the technically advanced countries of Western Asia and North Africa.
No doubt the Greeks and Romans would have been able to solve
their drinking-water problem without inspiration from the outside;
but the form of their answer strongly suggests the influence of
Oriental engineering.6
b. Navigation Canals
Among the great agrarian conformations Of history, only hydraulic
society has constructed navigation canals of any major size. The
seafaring Greeks, making the Mediterranean their highway, avoided
an issue which the ancient city states were poorly equipped to handle.
The not-too-numerous Roman canals were apparently all dug at a
time when the growing Orientalization of the governmental ap-
paratus stimulated, among other things, a growing interest in all
kinds of public works.7
The rainfall farmers of Medieval Europe, like their counterparts
elsewhere, shunned rather than sought the marshy river lowlands.
And their feudal masters paid little attention to the condition of the
watercourses, for which they had no use. Still less did they feel
obliged to construct additional and artificial rivers — canals. Few if
any important canals were built during the Middle Ages,8 and
medieval trade and transport were seriously handicapped by the
state of the navigable rivers.9
It was in connection with the rise of a governmentally encouraged
32 A MANAGERIAL POLITICAL ECONOMY
commercial and industrial capitalism that the West began to build
canals on a conspicuous scale. The "pioneer of the canals of modern
Europe," the French Canal du Midi, was completed only in the
second half of the 17th century, in 1681,10 that is, little more than a
century before the end of the absolutist regime. And in the classical
country of inland navigation, England,11 "little . . . was done in
making canals . . . until the middle of the eighteenth century" 12 —
that is, until a time well after the close of England's absolutist period
and immediately prior to the beginning of the machine age.
As stated above, the members of a hydraulic commonwealth felt
quite differently about the management of natural and artificial
watercourses. They approached the fertility-bearing rivers as closely
as possible, and in doing so they had to find ways of draining the
lowland marshes and strengthening and reshaping the river banks.
Naturally the question of inland navigation did not arise everywhere.
Existing rivers and streams might be suitable for irrigation, but not
for shipping (Pueblos, Chagga, Highland Peru); or the ocean might
prove an ideal means of transportation (Hawaii, Coastal Peru). In
certain localities inland navigation was satisfactorily served by man-
managed rivers (Egypt, India) and lakes (Mexico) plus whatever ir-
rigation canals were large enough to accommodate boats (Meso-
potamia).
But when supplementary watercourses were not only possible but
desirable, the organizers of agrohydraulic works had little difficulty
in utilizing their cooperative "apparatus" to make them available.
The new canals might be only minor additions to the existing
watercourses. The ancient Egyptians constructed canals in order to
circumnavigate impassable cataracts, and they temporarily connected
the Nile and the Red Sea; 13 but these enterprises had little effect
on the over-all pattern of the country's hydraulic economy. In other
instances, navigation canals assumed great importance. They satisfied
the needs of the masters of the hydraulic state: the transfer of parts
of the agrarian surplus to the administrative centers and the trans-
port of messengers and troops.
In Thailand (Siam) the different hydraulic tasks overlapped. In
addition to the various types of productive and protective hydraulic
installations, the government constructed in the centers of rice
production and state power a number of canals, which essentially
served as "waterways," that is, as a means for transporting the rice
surplus to the capital.14
The corresponding development in China is particularly well
documented. In the large plains of North China the beginnings of
navigation canals go back to the days of the territorial states — that
CHAPTER 2, D 33
is, to the period prior to 221 B.C., when the various regional govern-
ments were still administered by officials who were given office lands
in payment for their services. The difference between the state-
centered system of land grants as it prevailed in early China and
the knighthood feudalism of Medieval Europe is spectacularly dem-
onstrated by the almost complete absence of public works in feudal
Europe and the enormous development of such works — hydraulic
and otherwise — in the territorial states of China.6
The geographical and administrative unification of China which
vastly increased the political need for navigation canals also in-
creased the state's organizational power to build them. The first
centuries of the empire saw a great advance not only in the con-
struction of irrigation canals,15 reservoirs, and protective river dikes
but also in the digging of long canals for administrative and fiscal
purposes.18
When, after several centuries of political fragmentation, the Sui
rulers at the end of the 6th century again unified "all-under-heaven,"
they bulwarked the new political structure by creating out of earlier
and substantial beginnings the gigantic Imperial Canal, significantly
known in China as Yiin Ho, "the Transport Canal." This canal ex-
tends today for about 800 miles, its length equaling the distance
from the American-Canadian Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico or
b. Previously I viewed Chou China as a feudal society exhibiting Oriental features,
which appeared early and became increasingly conspicuous until, at the close of the
period, they prevailed completely (Wittfogel, 1931: 278 ft.; ibid., 1935: 40 ft.). The idea
of a society that crosses the institutional divide is entirely compatible with the findings
of the present inquiry (see below, Chap. 6); and by interpreting Chou society in this
way, I would not have had to change a long-held position. But intensified comparative
studies compel me to change. The arid and semi-arid settings of North China (17
inches annual rainfall in the old Chou domain and 24 inches in the domain of the
pre-Chou dynasty, Shang) suggest hydraulic agriculture for the ancient core areas.
The lay of the land, the summer floods, and the periodic silting-up of the rivers neces-
sitated comprehensive measures of flood control especially in the heartland of Shang
power. A realistic interpretation of legends and protohistorical sources (cf. Wittfogel
and Goldfrank, 1943: passim) points to the rise of a hydraulic way of life long before
the Shang dynasty, whose artifacts (bronzes) and inscriptions reflect a highly developed
agrarian civilization with refined techniques of record keeping, calculations, and astron-
omy. The recognizable institutions of early Chou are those of a hydraulic society,
which gradually intensified its managerial and bureaucratic "density" (for this con-
cept see below, Chap. 6). The Chou sovereigns behaved toward the territorial rulers
not as the first among equals but as supreme masters responsible only to Heaven. It
was not their fault that their despotic claims, which possibly imitated Shang precedents,
were realized imperfectly and with decreasing effect. In contrast, the rulers of the ter-
ritorial states were strong enough to proceed absolutistically within their respective
realms. The lands that they assigned were given not in a contractual way and to in-
dependently organized (corporated) knights and barons, but to office holders and persons
permitted to enjoy sinecures. They were not fiefs but office lands (see below, Chaps. 6-8).
34 A MANAGERIAL POLITICAL ECONOMY
— in European terms — the distance from Berlin to Bordeaux or from
Hamburg to Rome. For labor on part o£ this gigantic water work
the Sui government mobilized in the regions north of the Yellow
River alone "more than a million of men and women," " that is,
almost one-half of the total population which England is said to have
had from the 14th to the 16th century.18
The gigantic effort involved in banking the rivers and building
the canals of China is indicated by the American agronomist, F. H.
King, who conservatively estimates the combined lengths of the
man-managed watercourses of China, Korea, and Japan at some
200,000 miles. "Forty canals across the United States from east to
west and sixty from north to south would not equal in number of
miles those in these three countries today. Indeed, it is probable that
this estimate is not too large for China alone."
19
2. Large Non/iydraulic Constructions
a. Huge Defense Structures
The need for comprehensive works of defense arises almost as soon
as hydraulic agriculture is practiced. Contrary to the rainfall farmer,
who may shift his fields with relative ease, the irrigation farmer
finds himself depending on an unmovable, if highly rewarding,
source of fertility. In the early days of hydraulic cultivation reliance
on a fixed system of water supply must in many cases have driven
the agrarian community to build strong defenses around its homes
and fields.
For this purpose hydraulic agriculture proved suggestive in two
ways: it taught man how to handle all kinds of building materials,
earth, stone, timber, etc., and it trained him to manipulate these
materials in an organized way. The builders of canals and dams
easily became the builders of trenches, towers, palisades, and ex-
tended defense walls.
In this, as in all corresponding cases, the character and magnitude
of the operations were determined by internal and external cir-
cumstances. Surrounded by aggressive neighbors, the Pueblo Indians
ingeniously utilized whatever building material was at hand to
protect their settlements, which rarely comprised more than a few
hundred inhabitants." The fortress-like quality of their villages is
manifest to the present-day anthropologist; it struck the Spanish
c. Castaneda, 1896: 512. Bandelier upholds Castaneda's figures against divergent
statements made in other early Spanish sources (Bandelier, FR, I: 120 ff. and nn.; cf.
ibid., DH: 312, 46 ft., 171-3).
CHAPTER 2, D 35
conquistador es, who were forced at times to besiege a single settle-
ment for days and weeks before they could take it.d Rigid coopera-
tion assured security of residence, just as it assured success in farm-
ing. An early observer stresses this aspect of Pueblo life: "They all
work together to build the villages." *
d. Castaneda, who was the official chronicler of the first Spanish expedition, notes
(1896: 494) that the defense towers of a large Zuni settlement were equipped with
"embrassures and loopholes ... for defending the roofs of the different stories." He
adds, "The roofs have to be reached first, and these upper houses are the means
of defending them." The experiences of the second expedition confirmed and supple-
mented the initial observations. Gallegos concludes his remarks concerning Pueblo
building by referring to the movable wooden ladders "by means of which they climb
to their quarters." At night "they lift them up since they wage war with one another"
(Gallegos, 1927: 265). Obregon also stresses the military value of the ladders; in
addition, he explains how the edifices themselves served to protect the community:
"These houses have walls and loopholes from which they defend themselves and
attack their enemies in their battles" (Obregon, 1928: 293).
One of Coronado's lieutenants, approaching certain Tigua settlements, "found the
villages closed by palisades." The Pueblos, whose inhabitants had been subjected to
various forms of extortion and insult "were all ready for fighting. Nothing could be
done, because they would not come down onto the plain and the villages are so strong
that the Spaniards could not dislodge them." Attacking a hostile village, the Spanish
soldiers reached the upper story by surprise tactics. They remained in this dangerous
position for a whole day, unable to prevail until the Mexican Indians, who accom-
panied them, approached the Pueblo from below, digging their way in and smoking out
the defenders (Castaneda, 1896: 496. For a discussion of Castaneda's report see Bandelier,
DH: 38 fL).
Besieging a large Tigua settlement, Coronado's men had an opportunity to test
thoroughly the defense potential of a Pueblo which was not taken by surprise: "As the
enemy had had several days to provide themselves with stores, they threw down
such quantities of rocks upon our men that many of them were laid down, and they
wounded nearly a hundred with arrows." The siege lasted for seven weeks. During
this time, the Spaniards made several assaults; but they were unable to take the
Pueblo. The villagers eventually abandoned their fortress-like bulwark, not because
the aggressors had penetrated their defenses, but because of lack of water (Castaneda,
1896: 498 fL; cf. RDS: 576). Bandelier supplements Castaneda's report of this significant
event by an account given by Mota Padilla, an 18th-century author, who claims to have
had access to the original writings of still another member of Coronado's staff
(Bandelier, DH: 323). Mota Padilla's version contains a number of details which
reveal the techniques of attack as well as the strength and ingenuity of the defense.
Some of the Spaniards "reached the top of the wall, but there they found that the
natives had removed the roofs of many (upper) rooms, so that there was no communica-
tion between them, and as there were little towers at short distances from each other,
from which missiles were showered upon the assailants on the top, the Spaniards had
more than sixty of their number hurt, three of whom died of their wounds" (ibid., 48).
e. Castaneda (1896: 520) qualifies this general statement by saying that the women
were "engaged in making the [adobe] mixture and the walls, while the men bring
the wood and put it in place." Modern reports assign the above duties to the men
and credit them in addition with erecting the walls, the construction labors of the
women being confined to plastering (White, 1932: 33; cf. Parsons, 1932: 212). The
36 A MANAGERIAL POLITICAL ECONOMY
The Chagga were equally effective in the transfer of their hydraulic
work patterns to military constructions. Their great chieftain,
Horombo (/?. 1830), used "thousands of people" to build great
fortifications, which in part still stand today.20 "The walls of these
fortifications are some six feet high, and in length 305 yards on the
south side, 443 yards on the north, 277 yards on the east side, and
137 yards on the west side." 21 Tunnels, extended trenches, and dug-
outs added to the defense of the walled settlements, which appeared
early in the history of the Chagga.22 "Deep dugouts excavated under
the huts and often leading into underground passages with outlets
at some distance, were used for refuge. Almost every country was
secured with great war trenches, which are everywhere to be seen
at the present day and are often still of great depth." 23
These instances show what even primitive hydraulic societies could
achieve in the field of defense construction, when they strained their
cooperative resources to the full. Higher hydraulic societies em-
ployed and varied the basic principle in accordance with technical
and institutional circumstances.
In pre-Columbian Mexico the absence of suitable labor animals
placed a limitation on transport, and while this restricted siege craft,
it did not preclude the struggle for or the defense of the cities. In
emergencies many government-built hydraulic works in the main
lake area fulfilled military functions, just as the monster palaces and
temples served as bastions against an invading enemy.2* Recent re-
search draws attention to various types of Mexican forts and defense
walls.25 Because of their size and importance, they may safely be
adjudged as state-directed enterprises. The colossal fortresses and
walls of pre-Spanish Peru, which astonished early and recent ob-
servers,26 are known to have been built at the order of the govern-
ment and by "incredibly" large teams of corvee laborers.27
Many texts and pictorial representations have portrayed the walls,
gates, and towers of ancient Egypt, Sumer, Babylonia, Assyria, and
Syria. The Arthashdstra indicates the systematic manner in which the
rulers of the first great Indian empire treated problems of fortifica-
tion and defense.28 At the dawn of Chinese history new capitals were
created at the ruler's command, and during the last centuries of the
Chou period the territorial states used their corviable manpower to
wall entire frontier regions, not only against the tribal barbarians
but also against each other. In the 3d century b.c. the unifier of
divergence between the early and recent descriptions may reflect an actual institutional
change or merely a difference in the accuracy of observation. While interesting to the
anthropologist, this discrepancy does not affect our basic conclusions regarding the
communal character of large-scale building in the American Pueblos.
CHAPTER 2, D 37
China, Ch'in Shih Huang-ti, linked together and elaborated older
territorial structures to form the longest unbroken defense installa-
tion ever made by man.29 The periodic reconstruction of the Chinese
Great Wall expresses the continued effectiveness of hydraulic econ-
omy and government-directed mass labor.
b. Roads
The existence of government-made highways is suggested for the
Babylonian period; 30 it is documented for Assyria.31 And the rela-
tionship between these early constructions and the roads of Persia,
the Hellenistic states, and Rome seems "beyond doubt." ; The great
Persian "royal road" deeply impressed the contemporary Greeks; 32
it served as a model for the Hellenistic rulers,33 whose efforts in
turn inspired the official road builders of the Roman empire.34 Ac-
cording to Mez, the Arabs inherited "the type of 'governmental road,'
like its name, from the Persian 'Royal Road.' " 35 Beyond this, how-
ever, they showed little interest in maintaining good roads, probably
because they continued to rely in the main on camel caravans for
purposes of transport. The later Muslim regimes of the Near East
used highways, but they never restored them to the state of technical
perfection which characterized the pre-Arab period.38
Roads were a serious concern of India's vigorous Maurya kings.37
A "royal road" of 10,000 stadia, which is said to have led from the
capital to the northwestern border, had a system of marking dis-
tances which, in a modified form, was again employed by the Mogul
emperors.38 In Southern India, where Hindu civilization was per-
petuated for centuries after the north had been conquered, govern-
ment-made roads are mentioned in the inscriptions; and "some of
them are called king's highways." 39 The Muslim rulers of India
continued the Indian rather than the West Asian pattern in their
effort to maintain a network of state roads.40 Sher Shah (d. 1545)
built four great roads, one of which ran from Bengal to Agra, Delhi,
and Lahore.41 Akbar is said to have been inspired by Sher Shah
when he built a new "king's highway," called the Long Walk, which
for four hundred miles was "shaded by great trees on both sides." 42
In China, a gigantic network of highways was constructed im-
mediately after the establishment of the empire in 221 B.C. But in
this case, as in the cases of the irrigation and navigation canals or
/. Meissner, BA, I: 341. The term "royal road" was used in an Assyrian inscription
(Olmstead, 1923: 334). The operational pattern of the Roman state post, the cursus
publicus, can be traced back through the Hellenistic period to Persia and perhaps even
to Babylonia (Wilcken, 1912: 372 and n. 2).
S8 A MANAGERIAL POLITICAL ECONOMY
3
the long defense walls, the imperial engineers systematized and
elaborated only what their territorial predecessors had initiated. Long
before the 3d century b.c. an efficient territorial state was expected
to have well kept overland highways, supervised by central and
local officials, lined with trees, and provided with stations and guest
houses.43 Under the empire, great state roads connected all the im-
portant centers of the northern core area with the capital. Accord-
ing to the official History of the Han Dynasty, the First Emperor
built the Imperial Road throughout the empire. To the east it
stretched to Yen and Ch'i and to the south it reached Wu and
Gh'u. The banks and the shore of the Chiang [the Yangtze
River] and the lakes and the littoral along the sea coast were
all made accessible. The highway was fifty paces wide. A space
three chang [approximately twenty-two feet] wide in the center
was set apart by trees. The two sides were firmly built, and
metal bars were used to reinforce them. Green pine trees were
planted along it. He constructed the Imperial Highway with
such a degree of elegance that later generations were even unable
to find a crooked path upon which to place their feet,44
In the subsequent dynasties the building and maintenance of the
great trunk roads and their many regional branches remained a
standard task of China's central and local administration.
The rugged terrain of Meso-America and the absence of fully
coordinated empires seems to have discouraged the construction of
highways during the pre-Columbian period, at least on the high
plateau. But the Andean area was the scene of extraordinary road
building. The Spanish conquerors described in detail the fine high-
ways which crossed both the coastal plain and the highlands and
which formed connecting links between them.45 Commenting on the
Andean roads, Hernando Pizarro writes he never saw their like in
similar terrain "within the entire Christian world." 46 In fact the
only parallel he could think of was the system of highways built by
the Romans. The similarity is telling. As we shall discuss below, the
extensive Roman roads were the fruits of a fateful transformation
that made the Roman Empire a Hellenistically (Orientally) despotic
state.
The efforts required to build all these great highways have at-
tracted much less attention than the finished products. But what
evidence we have indicates that like most other major government
enterprises, they were mainly executed through the cooperative effort
of state-levied corvee laborers. Under the Inca empire supervisory
CHAPTER 2, D 39
officials marked off the land and informed the local inhabitants "that
they should make these roads." And this was done with little cost
to the government. The commandeered men "come with their food
and tools to make them." "
The highways of imperial China required an enormous labor
force for their construction and a very sizable one for their mainte-
nance. A Han inscription notes that the construction of a certain
highway in the years a.d. 63-66 occupied 766,800 men. Of this great
number only 2,690 were convicts.*7
c. Palaces, Capital Cities, and Tombs
A governmental apparatus capable of executing all these hydrau-
lic and nonhydraulic works could easily be used in building palaces
and pleasure grounds for the ruler and his court, palace-like govern-
ment edifices for his aides, and monuments and tombs for the dis-
tinguished dead. It could be used wherever the equalitarian condi-
tions of a primitive tribal society yielded to tribal or no-longer
tribal forms of autocracy.
The head chief of a Pueblo community had his fields worked for
him by the villagers. But apparently his dwelling did not differ
from the houses of other tribesmen, except perhaps that it was
better and more securely located. The Chagga chieftains had veri-
table palaces erected for their personal use; and the corvee labor in-
volved in their construction was substantial.48
The colossal palaces of the rulers of ancient Peru were erected by
the integrated manpower of many laborers. In pre-Columbian
Mexico, Nezahualcoyotzin, the king of Tezcuco, the second largest
country in the Aztec Federation, is said to have employed more than
200,000 workers each day for the building of his magnificent palace
and park.49
Unlimited control over the labor power of their subjects enabled
the rulers of Sumer, Babylon, and Egypt to build their spectacular
palaces, gardens, and tombs. The same work pattern prevailed in
the many smaller states that shaped their government on the Meso-
potamian or Egyptian model. According to the biblical records,
King Solomon built his beautiful temple with labor teams that, like
those of Babylonia, were kept at work for four months of the year.
50
g. Cieza, 1943: 95. The regional organization and the repair work on the roads had
already been noted by a member of the conquering army (Estete, 1938: 246). The
lack of payment for services rendered in the road corvee is also recorded by Bias
Valeras, who states that similar conditions prevailed with regard to work on the
bridges and irrigation canals (Garcilaso, 1945, I: 258).
40 A MANAGERIAL POLITICAL ECONOMY
The great edifices of Mogul India have been frequently described.
Less known but equally worthy of mention are the constructions of
the earlier periods. The third ruler of the Tughluq, Firus Shah (ca.
1308-88), dug several important irrigation canals, the famous "Old
Jumna Canal" among them. He built forts, palaces, and palace-cities,
mosques, and tombs. The palace-fort of Kotla Firus Shah, which rose
in his new capital of FIrusabad (Delhi), faithfully preserved the
grand style of pre-Islamic Indian and Eastern architecture.51
The Chinese variant of the general agromanagerial building trend
is revealed in many elaborate works. The First Emperor of China,
Ch'in Shih Huang-ti, began to build great hydraulic works in the
early days of his power; and in the course of his reign he completed
colossal works of the nonhydraulic public and semiprivate types.
Having destroyed all his territorial rivals, he constructed the previ-
ously mentioned network of highways which gave his officials,
messengers, and troops easy access to all regions of his far-flung
empire. Later he defended himself against the northern pastoralists
by consolidating the Great Wall. Palaces for his personal use had
been built in the early days of his reign; but it was only in 213 b.c.
that work was begun on his superpalace. This monster project, to-
gether with the construction of his enormous tomb,52 is said to have
occupied work teams numbering over 700,000 persons.53
Eight hundred years later the second monarch of a reunified
China, Emperor Yang (604-17) of the Sui Dynasty, mobilized a still
larger labor force for the execution of similar monster enterprises.
In addition to the more than one million persons — men and women
— levied for the making of the Grand Canal,54 he dispatched huge
corvee teams to extend the imperial roads 55 and to work on the
Great Wall. According to the History of the Sui Dynasty, over a
million persons toiled at the Great Wall.* According to the same
official source, the construction of the new eastern capital, which
included a gigantic new imperial palace, involved no less than two
million people "every month." "
d. Temples
The position, fate, and prestige of the secular masters of hydraulic
society were closely interlinked with that of their divine protectors.
Without exception, the political rulers were eager to confirm and
bulwark their own legitimacy and majesty by underlining the great-
ness of their supernatural supporters. Whether the government was
h. Over a million in 607; an additional 200,000 persons were employed in 608
(Sui Shu 3. 10b, 12a).
CHAPTER 2, D 41
headed by secular monarchs or priest-kings, the commanding center
made every effort to provide the supreme gods and their earthly
functionaries with adequate surroundings for worship and residence.
Government-directed work teams, which erected gigantic palaces,
were equally fitted to erect gigantic temples. Ancient inscriptions
note the many temples built by the Mesopotamian rulers.57 Usually
the sovereign speaks as if these achievements resulted solely from his
personal efforts. But occasional remarks indicate the presence of "the
people" who toiled "according to the established plan." * Similarly,
most Pharaonic texts refer to the final achievement s or to the great-
ness of the directing sovereign; 88 but again a number of texts refer
to the government-led labor forces, "the people." *
In the agromanagerial cultures of pre-Columbian America, build-
ings for religious purposes were particularly conspicuous. Native
tradition as well as the early Spanish accounts emphasize the tremen-
dous labor required to construct and maintain the sacred houses
and pyramids. The Mexicans coordinated their communal energies
to erect the first temple for the newly established island city, the later
Aztec capital; 59 and their increasingly powerful descendants mobi-
lized the manpower of many subjugated countries for the construc-
tion of increasingly huge temples."1 The city-like palace of the famous
King of Tezcuco, Nezahualcoyotzin, contained no less than forty
temples.00 The great number of laborers engaged in building this
palace- and temple-city has already been cited. Like the monster
work teams of Mexico, those of Tezcuco could draw upon the entire
corviable population." In another country of the main lake region,
Cuauhtitlan, the construction of large-scale hydraulic works 61 was
followed by the building of a great temple. It took thirteen years to
complete the second task.62
In the Andean zone, as in most other areas of the hydraulic world,
the attachment of the priesthood to the government is beyond doubt.
The Incas made heavy levies on their empire's material wealth in
i. Price, 1927: 24; cf. Thureau-Dangin, 1907: 111, and Barton, 1929: 225. Schneider
(1920: 46) and Deimel (1931: 101 ff.) deplore the scarcity of concrete data concerning
the Sumerian construction industry.
;'. Thus in one of the oldest inscriptions of Egypt extant, the Palermo Stone
(Breasted, 1927, I: 64).
k. "I have commanded those who work, to do according as thou shalt exact"
(Breasted, 1927, I: 245). The "people" bring the stone for the Amon Temple; and
the "people" also do the building. Among the workmen are several types of artisans
(ibid., II: 294, 293).
m. Tezozomoc, 1944: 79 (the Temple of Huitzilopochtli) and 157 (the great Cu
edifice of the same god).
n. Ixtlilxochitl, OH, II: 173 ff. The Annals of Cuauhtitlan also refer to this construc-
tion (Chimalpopoca, 1945: 52), without, however, discussing the labor aspect.
42 A MANAGERIAL POLITICAL ECONOMY
order to beautify their temples and pyramids.63 They called up what-
ever manpower was needed to collect the raw material, transport it,
and do the actual work of construction.64
E. THE MASTERS OF HYDRAULIC SOCIETY-
GREAT BUILDERS
Evidently the masters of hydraulic society, whether they ruled in
the Near East, India, China, or pre-Conquest America, were great
builders. The formula is usually invoked for both the aesthetic and
the technical aspect of the matter; and these two aspects are indeed
closely interrelated. We shall briefly discuss both of them with regard
to the following types of hydraulic and nonhydraulic construction
works:
I. Hydraulic works
A. Productive installations
(Canals, aqueducts, reservoirs, sluices, and dikes for the pur-
pose of irrigation)
B. Protective installations
(Drainage canals and dikes for flood control)
C. Aqueducts providing drinking water
D. Navigation canals
II. Nonhydraulic works
A. Works of defense and communication
1 . Walls and other structures of defense
2. Highways
B. Edifices serving the public and personal needs of the secular
and religious masters of hydraulic society
i. Palaces and capital cities
2. Tombs
3. Temples
1. The Aesthetic Aspect
a. Uneven Conspicuousness
The majority of persons who have commented on the great builders
of Asia and ancient America are far more articulate on the non-
hydraulic than on the hydraulic achievements. Within the hydraulic
sphere more attention is again given to the aqueducts for drinking
water and the navigation canals than to the productive and protec-
tive installations of hydraulic agriculture. In fact, these last are fre-
CHAPTER 2, E 43
quently overlooked altogether. Among the nonhydraulic works, the
"big houses" of power and worship and the tombs of the great are
much more carefully investigated than are the large installations of
communication and defense.
This uneven treatment of the monster constructions of hydraulic
society is no accident. For functional, aesthetic, and social reasons the
hydraulic works are usually less impressive than the nonhydraulic
constructions. And similar reasons encourage uneven treatment also
within each of the two main categories.
Functionally speaking, irrigation canals and protective embank-
ments are widely and monotonously spread over the landscape,
whereas the palaces, tombs, and temples are spatially concentrated.
Aesthetically speaking, most of the hydraulic works are undertaken
primarily for utilitarian purposes, whereas the residences of the rulers
and priests, the houses of worship, and the tombs of the great are
meant to be beautiful. Socially speaking, those who organize the
distribution of manpower and material are the same persons who
particularly and directly enjoy the benefits of many nonhydraulic
structures. In consequence they are eager to invest a maximum of
aesthetic effort in these structures (palaces, temples, and capital
cities) and a minimum of such effort in all other works.
Of course, the contrast is not absolute. Some irrigation works,
dikes, aqueducts, navigation canals, highways, and defense walls do
achieve considerable functional beauty. And closeness to the centers
of power may lead the officials in charge to construct embankments,
aqueducts, highways, bridges, walls, gates, and towers with as much
care for aesthetic detail as material and labor permit.
But these secondary tendencies do not alter the two basic facts
that the majority of all hydraulic and nonhydraulic public works
are aesthetically less conspicuous than the royal and official palaces,
temples, and tombs, and that the most important of all hydraulic
works — the canals and dikes — from the standpoint of art and artistry
are the least spectacular of all.
b. The Monumental Style
Such discrepancies notwithstanding, the palaces, government build-
ings, temples, and tombs share one feature with the "public" works
proper: they, too, tend to be large. The architectural style of hydraulic
society is monumental.
This style is apparent in the fortress-like settlements of the Pueblo
Indians. It is conspicuous in the palaces, temple cities, and fortresses
of ancient Middle and South America. It characterizes the tombs,
44 A MANAGERIAL POLITICAL ECONOMY
palace-cities, temples, and royal monuments of Pharaonic Egypt and
ancient Mesopotamia. No one who has ever observed the city gates
and walls of a Chinese capital, such as Peking, or who has walked
through the immense palace gates and squares of the Forbidden City
to enter its equally immense court buildings, ancestral temples, and
private residences can fail to be awed by their monumental design.
Pyramids and dome-shaped tombs manifest most consistently the
monumental style of hydraulic building. They achieve their aesthetic
effect with a minimum of ideas and a maximum of material. The
pyramid is little more than a huge pile of symmetrically arranged
stones.
The property-based and increasingly individualistic society of an-
cient Greece loosened up the massive architecture, which had
emerged in the quasihydraulic Mycenaean period.1 During the later
part of the first millennium B.C., when Alexander and his successors
ruled the entire Near East, the architectural concepts of Hellas trans-
formed and refined the hydraulic style without, however, destroying
its monumental quality.
In Islamic architecture the two styles blended to create a third.
The products of this development were as spectacular in the western-
most outpost of Islamic culture — Moorish Spain — as they were in the
great eastern centers: Cairo, Baghdad, Bukhara, Samarkand, and Is-
tanbul. The Taj Mahal of Agra and kindred buildings show the same
forces at work in India, a subcontinent which, before the Islamic in-
vasion, had evolved a rich monumental architecture of its own.
c. The Institutional Meaning
It hardly needs to be said that other agrarian civilizations also com-
bined architectural beauty with magnitude. But the hydraulic rulers
differed from the secular and priestly lords of the ancient and me-
dieval West, first because their constructional operations penetrated
more spheres of life, and second because control over the entire
country's labor power and material enabled them to attain much
more monumental results.
The scattered operations of rainfall farming did not involve the
establishment of national patterns of cooperation, as did hydraulic
agriculture. The many manorial centers of Europe's knighthood so-
ciety gave rise to as many fortified residences (castles); and their size
was limited by the number of the attached serfs. The king, being
little more than the most important feudal lord, had to build his
castles with whatever labor force his personal domain provided.
The concentration of revenue in the regional or territorial centers
CHAPTER 2, F 45
of ecclesiastical authority permitted the creation of the largest in-
dividual medieval edifices: churches, abbeys, and cathedrals. It may
be noted that these buildings were erected by an institution which,
in contrast to all other prominent Western bodies, combined feudal
with quasihydraulic patterns of organization and acquisition.
With regard to social control and natural resources, however, the
master builders of the hydraulic state had no equal in the non-
hydraulic world. The modest Tower of London and the dispersed
castles of Medieval Europe express the balanced baronial society of
the Magna Carta as clearly as the huge administrative cities and
colossal palaces, temples, and tombs of Asia, Egypt, and ancient
America express the organizational coordination and the mobiliza-
tion potential of hydraulic economy and statecraft.0
F. THE BULK OF ALL LARGE NONCONSTRUCTIONAL
INDUSTRIAL ENTERPRISES MANAGED ALSO BY
THE HYDRAULIC GOVERNMENT
1. A Comparative View
A government capable of handling all major hydraulic and non-
hydraulic construction may, if it desires, play a leading role also in
the nonconstructional branches of industry. There are "feeding" in-
dustries, such as mining, quarrying, salt gathering, etc.; and there are
finishing industries, such as the manufacture of weapons, textiles,
chariots, furniture, etc. Insofar as the activities in these two spheres
proceeded on a large scale, they were for the most part either directly
managed or monopolistically controlled by the hydraulic govern-
ments. Under the conditions of Pharaonic Egypt and Inca Peru, di-
rect management prevailed. Under more differentiated social con-
ditions, the government tended to leave part of mining, salt gather-
ing, etc. to heavily taxed and carefully supervised entrepreneurs,
while it continued to manage directly most of the large manufactur-
ing workshops.
By combining these facts with what we know of the hydraulic and
nonhydraulic constructional operations of the state, we may in the
following table indicate the managerial position of the hydraulic
state both in agriculture and industry. For purposes of comparison,
we include corresponding data from two other agrarian societies and
from mercantilist Europe.
a. For another peculiarity of hydraulic architecture, the "introvert" character of
most of the residential buildings, with the exception of those of the ruler, see below,
p. 86, n. b.
46 A MANAGERIAL POLITICAL ECONOMY
Table 1. Government Management in the Spheres of Agriculture and Industry
AGRICULTURE
INDUSTRY
1
f
Manufacturing
1
INSTITUTIONAL
CONFORMATIONS
Heavy
Waterworks Farming
Mining, etc.
Construction
Industry
Large
Shops
Small
Shops
Hydraulic society
+
<+)'
+'
+
—
Coastal city states of
classical Greece
— _
, — .
Medieval Europe
(+)f
—
(+>*
(+)'
—
Mercantilist Europe
— —
(-)
—
—
—
Key
-f- Predominant
+ Outstandingly significant
— Irrelevant or absent
1. Simp!
2. On a
$. On a
er conditions,
national scale,
manorial scale.
( ) Trend limited or modified by factors indicated in the text
In ancient Greece, mining was mainly in the hands o£ licensed
businessmen. As long as the concessionaire delivered a fixed part of
his output to the state, he enjoyed "very extensive" rights; he "was
said to 'buy' the mine, he organized the working as he pleased, the
ore was his, and he could cede his concession to a third party." x In
Medieval Europe mining was also essentially left to private entre-
preneurs, who, having obtained a concession from the royal or ter-
ritorial authorities, proceeded independently and mostly through
craft cooperatives.2 The mercantilist governments of Europe operated
some mines directly; but the majority was managed by strictly super-
vised private owners.3
All these arrangements differ profoundly from the system of gov-
ernment mining prevailing in Pharaonic Egypt and Inca Peru. Mer-
cantilist usage resembles in form, but not in institutional substance,
the policy pursued in certain of the more differentiated hydraulic
societies, where government operation of some mines was combined
with private, but government-licensed, handling of others.4
Except for mining, Oriental and Occidental absolutism are less
similar in the industrial sphere than has been claimed, whereas a
resemblance of sorts does exist between hydraulic society and feudal
Europe. In hydraulic society, the majority of the not-too-many larger
industrial workshops was government managed. In the mercantilist
Occident they were, under varying forms of state supervision, pre-
dominantly owned and run by private entrepreneurs. In the coastal
city-states of classical Greece the government was neither equipped
nor inclined to engage in industrial activities. The rulers of Medieval
Europe, faced with a different situation, proceeded differently. In
CHAPTER 2, F 47
their manorial workshops they employed a number of serf -artisans,
who were kept busy satisfying the needs of their masters. The feudal
lords also summoned serf labor for the construction of "big houses"
— castles. The similarity between this manorial system of cooperative
work and the hydraulic pattern is evident. But again the functional
similarity is limited by the differences in the societal setting. The
medieval kings and barons could dispose only over the labor force
of their own domains and estates, while the hydraulic rulers could
draw on the unskilled and skilled labor of large territories, and ulti-
mately on that of the whole country.
The decisive difference, however, between hydraulic society and
the three civilizations with which we compare it lies, insofar as in-
dustry is concerned, in the sphere of construction. It is this sphere
which more than any other sector of industry demonstrates the or-
ganizational power of hydraulic society. And it is this sphere which
achieved results never attained by any other agrarian or mercantilist
society.
The full institutional significance of this fact becomes apparent as
soon as we connect it with the corresponding agrarian development.
Government-managed heavy water works place the large-scale feeding
apparatus of agriculture in the hands of the state. Government-
managed construction works make the state the undisputed master of
the most comprehensive sector of large-scale industry. In the two
main spheres of production the state occupied an unrivaled position
of operational leadership and organizational control.
2. The Power of the Hydraulic State over Labor
Greater than That of Capitalist Enterprises
In both spheres the hydraulic state levied and controlled the needed
labor forces by coercive methods that were invocable by a feudal
lord only within a restricted area, and that were altogether different
from the methods customary under capitalist conditions. The hydrau-
lic rulers were sufficiently strong to do on a national scale what a
feudal sovereign or lord could accomplish only within the borders
of his domain. They compelled able-bodied commoners to work for
them through the agency of the corvee.
Corvee labor is forced labor. But unlike slave labor, which is de-
manded permanently, corvee labor is conscripted on a temporary, al-
though recurring, basis. After the corvee service is completed, the
worker is expected to go home and continue with his own business.
Thus the corvee laborer is freer than the slave. But he is less free
than a wage laborer. He does not enjoy the bargaining advantages
48 A MANAGERIAL POLITICAL ECONOMY
of the labor market, and this is the case even if the state gives him
food (in the ancient Near East often "bread and beer") or some
cash. In areas with a highly developed money economy the hydraulic
government may levy a corvee tax and hire rather than conscript
the needed labor. This was done largely in China at the close of
the Ming dynasty and during the greater part of Ch'ing rule.
But there as elsewhere the government arbitrarily fixed the wage.
And it always kept the workers under quasimilitary discipline.5 Ex-
cept in times of open political^erisis, the hydraulic state could always
muster the labor forces it required; and this whether the workers
were levied or hired. It has been said that the Mogul ruler Akbar,
"by his firman (order) could collect any number of men he liked.
There was no limit to his massing of labourers, save the number of
people in his Empire." 6 Mutatis mutandis, this statement is valid for
all hydraulic civilizations.
G. A GENUINE AND SPECIFIC TYPE OF
MANAGERIAL REGIME
Thus the hydraulic state fulfilled a variety of important managerial
functions.0 In most instances it maintained crucial hydraulic works,
appearing in the agrarian sphere as the sole operator of large prepara-
tory and protective enterprises. And usually it also controlled the
major nonhydraulic industrial enterprises, especially large construc-
tions. This was the case even in certain "marginal" areas,1 where the
hydraulic works were insignificant.
The hydraulic state differs from the modern total managerial states
in that it is based on agriculture and operates only part of the country's
economy. It differs from the laissez-faire states of a private-property-
based industrial society in that, in its core form, it fulfills crucial
economic functions by means of commandeered (forced) labor.
a. Social science is indebted to James Burnham for pointing to the power potential
inherent in managerial control. The present inquiry stresses the importance of the
general (political) organizer as compared not only to the technical specialist (see Veblen,
1945: 441 ff.), but also to the economic manager. This, however, does not diminish the
author's appreciation of the contribution made by Burnham through his concept of
managerial leadership.
CHAPTER 3
state stronger than society
A. NONGOVERNMENTAL FORCES COMPETING WITH
THE STATE FOR SOCIETAL LEADERSHIP
The hydraulic state is a genuinely managerial state. This fact has
far-reaching societal implications. As manager of hydraulic and other
mammoth constructions, the hydraulic state prevents the nongovern-
mental forces of society from crystallizing into independent bodies
strong enough to counterbalance and control the political machine.
The relations between the governmental and nongovernmental
forces of society are as manifold as the patterns of society itself. All
governments are concerned with the protection of the commonwealth
against external enemies (through the organization of military action)
and with the maintenance of internal order (through jurisdiction and
policing methods of one kind or another). The extent to which a
government executes these and other tasks depends on the way in
which the societal order encourages, or restricts, governmental activ-
ities on the one hand and the development of rival nongovernmental
forces on the other.
The nongovernmental forces aiming at social and political leader-
ship include kin groups (particularly under primitive conditions);
representatives of autonomous religious organizations (customary in
certain primitive civilizations but, as the history of the Christian
Church shows, by no means confined to them); independent or semi-
independent leaders of military groups (such as tribal bands, armies
of feudal lords); and owners of various forms of property (such as
money, land, industrial equipment, and capacity to work).
In some cases the rise of hydraulic despotism was probably con-
tested by the heads of powerful clans or by religious groups eager to
preserve their traditional autonomy. In others, semi-independent
military leaders may have tried to prevent the masters of the hydrau-
lic apparatus from attaining total control. But the rival forces lacked
the proprietary and organizational strength that in Greek and Roman
antiquity, as well as in Medieval Europe, bulwarked the nongovern-
mental forces of society. In hydraulic civilizations the men of the
49
50 A STATE STRONGER THAN SOCIETY
government prevented the organizational consolidation of all non-
governmental groups. Their state became "stronger than society." *
Any organization that gives its representatives unchecked power over
its subjects may be considered an "apparatus." In contrast to the con-
trolled state of multicentered societies, the state of the single-centered
hydraulic society was a veritable apparatus state.
B. THE ORGANIZATIONAL POWER OF THE
HYDRAULIC STATE
1. The Great Builders of Hydraulic Society —
Great Organizers
Superior organizational power may have different roots. In a hy-
draulic setting the need for comprehensive organization is inherent
in the comprehensive constructions necessitated or suggested by the
peculiarities of the agrarian order.
These constructions pose numerous technical problems and they
always require large-scale organization. To say that the masters of
hydraulic society are great builders is only another way of saying
they are great organizers.
2. Fundamentals of Effective Organization:
Counting and Record Keeping
An organizer combines disparate elements into an integrated whole.
He may do this ex tempore if his aim is simple or passing. He must
make more elaborate preparations if he is confronted with a perma-
nent and difficult task. Dealing with human beings — their labor
power, their military potential, and their capacity to pay taxes — he
must know their number and condition. To this end he must count
the people. And whenever he expects to draw from them frequently
and regularly, he must preserve the results of his count either by
memorizing them or, above the most primitive level, by utilizing
preliterary or literary symbols.
It is no accident that among all sedentary peoples the pioneers of
hydraulic agriculture and statecraft were the first to develop rational
systems of counting and writing. It is no accident either that the
records of hydraulic society covered not only the limited areas of
single cities or city states, of royal domains or feudal manors, but the
towns and villages of entire nations and empires. The masters of
hydraulic society were great builders because they were great organ-
izers; and they were great organizers because they were great record
keepers.
CHAPTER 3, B 51
The colored and knotted strings (quipus) by which the Incas pre-
served the results of their frequent countings x show that the lack of
a script constitutes no insurmountable barrier to numbering and
registering the population. In pre-Conquest Mexico the various forms
of land and the obligations attached were carefully depicted in cod-
ices; and the procedures of local administrators were apparently
based on these all-important documents.2
In China an elaborate system of writing and counting existed as
early as the Yin (Shang) dynasty, that is, in the second millennium
B.C. Under the subsequent Chou dynasty census lists were used for
determining potential fighters and laborers and for estimating rev-
enue and expenditures. Specific evidence testifies to a detailed system
of counting and registering in the ruling state of Chou,3 and we know
that at the close of the Chou period the people were registered in the
great northwestern country of Ch'in,4 and also in Ch'i. In Ch'i the
census is said to have been taken every year in the autumn.5 It was
in this season that people were also counted under the first long-lived
imperial dynasty, Han.6 Preserved bamboo records indicate that the
Han registers follow a regular pattern.7 The two sets of Han census
figures contained in the official history of the period 8 are the most
comprehensive population data to come down to us from any major
contemporary civilization, including the Roman Empire.
The later history of the Chinese census presents many problems
which are far from solved. The methods and the accuracy of proce-
dures changed greatly with time, but the government's role in the
handling of these matters cannot be doubted. In one way or another,
the imperial bureaucracy succeeded in keeping track of its human
and material resources.
The same holds true for India. The A rthashastra 9 and the Islamic
sources 10 reveal the interest which both native and foreign rulers
took in counting their subjects and estimating their revenues. And
this interest was by no means academic. Megasthenes found various
groups of officials in the Maurya empire charged with such tasks as
measuring the fields and counting the people.11 Numerous inscrip-
tions throw light on surveys made during the last period of Hindu
India.12
After China, we are probably best informed on the Near Eastern
development of governmental counting and registering. The oldest
deciphered inscriptions dealing with the economy of a Mesopotamian
temple city contain many numerical data on land, people, agricul-
ture, and public services.13 In Pharaonic Egypt the people were
counted regularly from the time of the Old Kingdom.14 Documentary
evidence for the connection between the census and fiscal and per-
52 A STATE STRONGER THAN SOCIETY
sonal obligations exist only for the Middle and New Kingdoms, but
the absence of still earlier data on this point is certainly accidental.15
On the eve of the Hellenistic period persons and property seem to
have been listed annually; 16 and the Ptolemies probably perpetuated
the ancient system. The papyri suggest that there were two cadasters
used for mutual checking, one in the individual villages and one in
the metropolis.17
Under the succeeding regimes the methods of counting people and
property, particularly land, underwent many modifications; but as
in India and China the underlying principle continued to receive
recognition. The Romans inherited the Hellenistic pattern 18 and the
Arabs based their system on that of Eastern Rome.19 The Mamluks
upheld the time-honored system of record keeping,20 as did the Otto-
man Turks, who during the heyday of their power insisted that
"every thirty years a census must be taken, the dead and the ill must
be separated off, and those not on the rolls must be newly re-
corded." 21
3. Organizational and Hydraulic Management
A glance at the metropolitan and local centers of hydraulic record
keeping recalls the original meaning of the term "bureau-cracy" :
"rule through bureaus." The power of the agromanagerial regime
was indeed closely interlinked with the "bureaucratic" control which
the government exerted over its subjects.
a. The Organizational Task Inherent in Large Constructions,
Hydraulic and Otherwise
As stated above, enormous organizational tasks are inherent in the
large constructions which the agrarian apparatus state accomplishes
and which, particularly in their hydraulic form, play a decisive role
in crystallizing the over-all conformation. Having, in the preceding
chapter, dealt at some length with the constructional developments of
hydraulic society, we shall confine ourselves here to re-emphasizing
once more the cardinal importance of organization in this field.
b. Hydraulic Management
The outstanding forms of hydraulic management (as juxtaposed to
construction) are the distribution of irrigation water and flood
watching. In general, these two operations require much less man-
power than does the work of construction and repair, but those en-
gaged in the former must cooperate very precisely.
CHAPTER 3, B 53
Megasthenes describes the care with which officials of the Maurya
empire opened and closed the canals and conduits to regulate the dis-
tribution of the irrigation water.* The highly systematized handbook
of Chinese statecraft, the Chou Li, speaks of special officials who con-
ducted the irrigation water from the reservoirs and larger canals to
the smaller canals and ditches.22 Herodotus, in a frequently quoted
passage, tells how in Achaemenian Persia the sovereign himself super-
vised the major hydraulic operations: "The king orders the flood-
gates to be opened toward the country whose need is greatest, and lets
the soil drink until it has had enough; after which the gates on this
side are shut, and others are unclosed for the nation which, of the
remainder, needs it most." 23
Megasthenes and Herodotus make it very clear that the govern-
ment was the distributing agent of the irrigation water; but they do
not furnish organizational details. Such data are buried in adminis-
trative manuals and regulations which, because of their predomi-
nantly technical nature, have received little scholarly attention.
Among the exceptions are some accounts of 10th- and 16th- (or
17th-) century Persia and several irrigation codes discovered in Bali.
The documents dealing with Persian conditions show the care with
which the available water was assigned. They indicate also the clock-
like cooperation between the "water master" (mlrab), his subordinate
officials and aides, and the village heads.6 The Bali data familiarize
us with the workings of a well-integrated hydraulic order. Here the
ruler and the minister of revenues (sedahan agong) make the key
decisions as to when and how to flood the various local hydraulic
units, the subak.24 The official head of a cluster of such units super-
vises the supply for each subak; 25 and the chief of the local unit, the
klian subak, coordinates the individual peasants, who swear a solemn
oath to submit to regulations while the rice fields, sawah, are being
flooded.26 "Thus the orderly distribution of the water among the
various sawah-ho\ders is accomplished with extreme care, and also
with well-based reasons. The sawah-holder cannot at any time dis-
pose over his share of the water supply where the water is scarce. The
a. Strabo 15. 1. 50. Smith, 1914: 132. Buddha himself is said to have settled a
conflict between two city states over their rights to use the waters of a nearby river
(Jdtakam, V: 219).
b. Lambton, 1948: 589 ff. Ibid., 1938: 665 ff. The organization of the irrigation system
in East Persia at the time of the Abbassid caliphate is described in Arab sources.
The head of the water office in Merv had at his disposal ten thousand hands, and his
power surpassed that of the district police chief. The storage dam below the city
was operated by four hundred guards; and the technique of measuring and distributing
the water was minutely regulated (Mez, 1922: 423 ff.)- For the institution of the water
master in ancient and modern South Arabia see Grohmann, 1933: 31.
54 A STATE STRONGER THAN SOCIETY
various sawah -holders, even if they belong to the same subak, must
share the available water and must have their sawah flooded in
sequence." 27
The organizational operations involved in the distribution of the
irrigation water are remarkable for their subtlety and for their cen-
tralization of leadership. Conflicts are frequent between cultivator
and cultivator and between subak and subak. "If each sawah-holdev
could do as he pleases, there would soon arise the greatest disorder
and the lower subak would probably never get their water." All these
problems are successfully resolved because essentially "the distribu-
tion of the water as well as the water law lies in the hands of a single
person." 28
The control of flood water necessitates greater organizational effort
only under special circumstances. An operational problem arises
primarily where the seasonal overflow of an extended source of water
threatens the irrigation system and the safety of those depending on it.
In Bali the upper courses of the river have to be watched; and espe-
cially assigned men fulfill this function as a regular part of their
hydraulic corvee.28 In imperial China, even in times of decay, the
government placed thousands of persons along their extended em-
bankments in the battle against potential floods.30 Between 1 883 and
1888 the Egyptian government levied about one hundred thousand
corviable persons annually to watch and fight the flood.
31
4. The Organization of Quick Locomotion and
Intelligence
Under hydraulic conditions of agriculture, certain large operations
of construction and management must be organized. Other organiza-
tional activities are not imperative, but they are made possible by a
political economy which compels the government to maintain centers
of direction and coordination in all major regions of production.
Being able to establish its authority not only over a limited "royal
domain" and a number of royal towns — as does the typical feudal
state — the hydraulic regime places its administrators and officers in
all major settlements, which virtually everywhere assume the char-
acter of government-controlled administrative and garrison towns.
Effective governmental control involves first the political and fiscal
superiority of the directing agency and second the means for convey-
ing commands and commanders to the subcenters of control. The
desire to exert power through the control of communications char-
acterizes all political hierarchies; but circumstances determine the
extent to which this desire will be satisfied. The overlord of a feudal
CHAPTER 3, B 55
society valued fast communications as much as any Oriental despot;
but the spotty distribution of his administrative centers and the po-
litically conditioned lack of good roads prevented his messages from
traveling as quickly or as safely as did the messages of the hydraulic
sovereign.
The development of long highways and navigation canals is only
another manifestation of the extraordinary construction potential of
hydraulic society. Similarly the development of effective systems of
communication is only another manifestation of its extraordinary
organizational potential. Almost all hydraulic states bulwarked their
power by elaborate systems of "postal" communication and intelli-
gence.
The terms "post" or "postal service" express the fact that persons
are "posted" at intervals along the road; the formula "relay system"
points to the regulated interaction between the persons so posted.
The terms will be used interchangeably and with the understanding
that, within our context, they refer to an organization maintained by
the state for the purposes of the state. On occasion the post handled
rare and perishable goods (fruit and fish for the court, etc.). But its
primary aim was the movement of persons of privilege (envoys,
officials, foreign diplomats), messengers, and messages — these latter
including intelligence of the most confidential, important, and deli-
cate nature.
In the decentralized society of Medieval Europe individuals or
groups of individuals (merchants, butchers, towns) established over-
land communications long before the government undertook the
organization of a systematic postal service.32 In the hydraulic world,
private communications were not lacking,33 but they never competed
with the far-flung and effective relay system of the state. By running
the post as a political institution, the representatives of Oriental
government maintained a monopoly over fast locomotion, which —
interlocked with an elaborate system of intelligence — became a for-
midable weapon of social control.
The hydraulic countries of ancient America present the relay
system in a simple but highly effective form. In the absence of suit-
able transport animals, messages were carried by runners, who in the
Mexican area proceeded along more or less informal routes and in
the Andean area, along excellent state highways. The Mexican relay
stations are said to have been set something like two leagues (ca.
6 miles) apart; 34 and, according to Torquemada, the speed with
which messages could be delivered exceeded one hundred leagues
(300 miles) per day.35 The stations along the Inca road were closer
to each other, at times no more than three-quarters of a mile separat-
56 A STATE STRONGER THAN SOCIETY
ing them. The runners could move at a speed of one hundred and
fifty miles per day. According to Cobo, one message was carried from
the coastal town of Lima to Cuzco, the capital of the altiplano, over
approximately four hundred miles of difficult and often steep terrain,
in something like three days. A hundred years after the conquest it
took the Spanish horse-mail twelve to thirteen days to cover the same
ground.0 While on service, the runners had to be fed; and this was
the responsibility of the settlements through which the relay routes
passed.36 As a matter of fact, in all parts of the hydraulic world those
who lived along the post roads were generally compelled to provision
the stations, furnish auxiliary labor, and supply the draft and trans-
port animals, carriages, sedan chairs or boats demanded by the relay
officials.
The Incas are said to have been extremely well informed about
the remotest regions of their empire.37 The far-flung organization of
the postal system of Achaemenian Persia greatly impressed Herod-
otus.38 Private letters might also be carried, but for security reasons
they were read by the postal officials.39 Xenophon stressed the intelli-
gence angle. Through the royal post the Achaemenian kings were
able "to learn with great celerity the state of affairs at any distance." 40
The technical peculiarities of the Roman state post have been fre-
quently described. The layout of its larger and smaller stations (man-
stones and mutationes) and the organizational pattern of the institu-
tion are indeed remarkable.41 But it is important to remember that
from the very beginning the cursus publicus was primarily aimed at
providing the imperial center with information.42 By establishing the
post, Augustus laid the foundations for a comprehensive intelligence
system. Special officials, first called frumentarii and from Diocletian
on agentes in rebus, operated in conjunction with the technical staff.
Their activities enormously strengthened the hold of the autocracy
over its subjects.43
At the beginning of the Byzantine period the postal system is said
to have been excellent.44 According to Procopius, it enabled the cour-
iers to cover in one day a distance otherwise requiring ten days.45
The Sassanid rulers of Persia followed the Achaemenian tradition
both in maintaining an effective postal service and in using it essen-
tially for the purposes of the state.46
It is generally claimed that the caliphs shaped their postal system
after the Persian model.47 This seems to be true with one important
qualification. The Arabs, who carried with them the tradition of the
steppe and the desert, moved on horseback or by means of camel
c. Cobo, HNM, III: 269; Rowe, 1946: 231 ff. According to Cieza (1945: 137), a message
was carried this distance in eight days.
CHAPTER
57
caravans. Consequently they paid little attention *s to the well-kept
highways, which had been the glory of the Near Eastern postal serv-
ice until the days of the Sassanids. Otherwise they were indeed eager
to keep the state post in good condition. In the 9th century the cali-
phate is said to have maintained over 900 relay stations.49
Under the caliphs the postmaster-general was often at the same
time the head of the intelligence service.50 An appointment decree
of the year a.h. 315 (a.d. 927-28) states clearly that the caliph expected
the head of the postal service to observe in detail the state of farming,
the condition of the population, the behavior of the official judges,
the mint, and other relevant matters. The secret reports were to deal
separately with the various classes of functionaries, judges, police of-
ficials, persons in charge of the taxes, etc.51 The directives imply elab-
orate methods of gathering and tabulating information.
The Fatimids perpetuated the postal tradition of their Arab pred-
ecessors; 62 and the Mamluks were at least as eager to maintain the
state post, which during the period of their prosperity connected the
Egyptian metropolis with the various regions of Syria.53 Qalqashandi
notes the connection between the regular postal system and the or-
ganization of intelligence and espionage. Government offices dealing
with these matters were under the same ministry, the Diwan of Cor-
respondence.54 The dispatch-bearers of the Ottoman government
carried the regime's political and administrative correspondence
"through the length and breadth of the Ottoman Empire." 55
Megasthenes mentions the activities of intelligence officials in
Maurya India; S6 and the Arthashastra and the Book of Manu discuss
in some detail the methods to be employed by spies.57 The relation
between the government-maintained courier system and secret intel-
ligence becomes clearly apparent in texts dealing with the Gupta
period (3d-8th century a.d.); 58 and it can also be documented for
the Muslim period.59 In Mogul times local intelligence was bureau-
cratically organized under an official designated as kotwdl.00 It seems
legitimate to assume that the national intelligence service was inter-
linked with the road system, whose public inns (sarais) and other
conveniences were organized "in accordance with the practice of the
best Hindu kings in ancient times." 61
In China the relay system developed together with state roads and
man-made waterways. Perpetuating and elaborating earlier patterns,62
the masters of the empire established a postal service which, with
numerous disruptions and modifications, lasted for more than two
thousand years. The imperial post provided the government with
quick and confidential information on all parts of the country. Dur-
ing the Han period, rebellious barbarians not infrequently burned
58 A STATE STRONGER THAN SOCIETY
the postal stations.63 A high dignitary, titled King of Yen, who con-
spired to become emperor, set up a relay system of his own for the
speedy transmission of messages.04 A former official, wanted by the
government, stated in a plaintive memorandum that the government
began its search for him by dispatching "messages by the post service
and the post-horse system to make a proclamation near and far." His
pursuers "examined every footprint of man" and "followed every rut
of the carriage." Eventually the net that was "spread ail over the em-
pire" closed in upon the fugitive; he was caught and delivered to his
death.65
The relay system of the T'ang government (618-907) operated
through more than 1,500 stations, of which nearly 1,300 served over-
land communications, 260 functioned as "water posts," and 86 as
both.66 The Liao post was also exclusively reserved for the use of
the state; its support remained the burden of the people. "Every
county was supposed to have its own relay stations for which the
local population had to provide the necessary horses and oxen."67
Viewed against such historical precedents, Marco Polo's report of
the postal system of Mongol China does not seem unreasonable, par-
ticularly if we remember that the Great Khan's empire included
many a "roadless tract." 68 The Mongol rulers of China kept an un-
usually large number of horses. But it is noteworthy that in addition
to maintaining many major "horse post houses," even these mounted
conquerors had many smaller stations for the use of foot runners.
Through the runners, whose number was "immense," the Mongol
Empire received "despatches with news from places ten days' journey
off in one day and night." 69
The use of foot runners — as a supplement to the horse- and boat-
post — continued until the last imperial dynasty, Ch'ing (1616-1912).
In 1825 the postal service operated an elaborate network of trunk
and branch roads with more than 2,000 express stations and almost
15,000 stations for foot messengers. For the former the administra-
tion budgeted 30,526 horses and 71,279 service men and for the lat-
ter, 47,435 foot messengers. These figures cover only the technical
personnel. Official information and secret intelligence were handled
by regional and local officials, whose vigilance was sharpened by
threats of severe punishment.
The organizational effort involved in maintaining this gigantic
network is obvious. The extraordinary opportunities for speedy and
confidential information are no less striking. The metropolitan prov-
ince, Chihli, alone had 185 express stations and 923 foot dispatch
posts. Corresponding figures for Shantung are 139 and 1,062; for
Shansi, 127 and 988; for Shensi, 148 and 534; for Szechwan, 66 and
CHAPTER 3, B 59
1,409; for Yunnan, 76 and 425. During the 17th and 18th centuries
the Ch'ing government allocated as much as 10 per cent of its total
expenditures for the maintenance of its postal system.
70
5. The Organizational Pattern of Warfare in
Hydraulic Society
Organized control over the bulk of the population in times of
peace gives the government extraordinary opportunities for coordi-
nated mass action also in times of war. This becomes manifest as
soon as we contemplate such crucial aspects of defense as the monop-
olization and coordination of military operations, organization of
supplies, military theory, and potential size of the armed forces. A
comparative view of these and related features reveals the institu-
tional peculiarities of hydraulic society in this field as in others.
a. Monopolization and Coordination
The sovereign of a feudal country did not possess a monopoly of
military action. As a rule, he could mobilize his vassals for a limited
period only, at first perhaps for three months and later for forty
days, the holders of small fiefs often serving only for twenty or ten
days, or even less.71 This temporary levy tended to affect only part
of the vassals' military strength, perhaps a third or a fourth, or a still
smaller fraction.72 And frequently even this fraction was not obliged
to follow the sovereign, if he campaigned abroad.73
The national sovereign had full control only over his own troops,
which in accordance with the decentralized character of society con-
stituted only a part — and often a not very large part — of the tempo-
rarily assembled national armies. In England the Norman Conquest
accelerated the growth of governmental power; but even here the
royal core was slow in prevailing. In 1300 during the Carlaverock
campaign, the king accomplished what Tout considers a maximal
mobilization of "horse guards of the crown." At this time the "house-
hold" element was "roughly about a quarter of the whole number
of men-at-arms"; at best it was "nearer a third than a quarter." 74 In
1467 the German emperor tried to gather an army of 5,217 horsemen
and 13,285 foot soldiers for fighting against the Turks. Out of the
aimed-at total, the emperor's own contingent was expected to com-
prise 300 horsemen and 700 foot soldiers, while six electors were
expected to contribute 320 and 740 respectively; forty-seven arch-
bishops and bishops 721 and 1,813; twenty-one princes 735 and
1,730; various counts and seigneurs 679 and 1,383; and seventy-nine
towns 1,059 anc* 2,926."
60 A STATE STRONGER THAN SOCIETY
In all these respects the armies of the hydraulic state proceeded on
an entirely different level. The soldiers were not protected by demo-
cratic checks or feudal contracts. No matter whether they held office
land or not, they came when they were summoned; they marched
where they were told; they fought as long as their ruler wanted them
to fight; and there was no question as to who gave the orders or who
obeyed.
The constant rotation of the many armed contingents that in ac-
cordance with the feudal contract served only for a short period con-
stituted a major reason for the restlessness that characterized virtually
all compound feudal armies. Another reason was the lack of a defi-
nite authority. Where the sovereign was little more than the first
among equals, and where the many lords proudly insisted on the
privileges of their position, argument easily replaced obedience. Con-
sequently military action was marked as much by the lack of disci-
pline as by individual valor.
76
b. Training and Morale
The army of a hydraulic state might include among those it drafted
many persons of poor training and little fighting spirit. With regard
to skill these men might compare unfavorably with a feudal host,
whose members were carefully trained, and with regard to morale
they might be inferior to the warriors of both ancient Greece and
feudal Europe. But in planned coordination they approached the
ancient Greeks; and they far surpassed the European chevaliers.
Table 2. Types of Societies and Types of Fighters
ARP
•IIES OF
1
QUALIFICATtONS
Hydraulic Society
Classical Greece
Feudal Europe
x
-A
t t \
Professional Drafted men:
troops "militia"
Training 4- —
Spirit -f —
Coordination -f- -}-
Key
-\- Feature developed
— Feature weak or absent
+
+
+
+
+
The Greeks, who recognized the high quality of the Oriental elite
warriors,d commented contemptuously on the poorly trained mass of
auxiliary soldiers,77 who obviously were draftees. Most of them did
indeed lack the spirited integration which was the pride of the
d. See Herodotus' account of the conversation between the exiled Spartan king,
Demaratus, and Xerxes (Herodotus 7. 103 f.).
CHAPTER 3, B 6l
Greek citizen armies.78 But opposed to the disorderly hosts of
Medieval Europe the well-coordinated troops of the Eastern mon-
archies made formidable enemies. About a.d. goo the author of the
Tactica, Emperor Leo VI,e advised his generals to "take advantage
of their [the Franks' and Lombards'] indiscipline and disorder."
"They have neither organisation nor drill" and therefore, "whether
fighting on foot or on horseback, they charge in dense, unwieldy
masses, which cannot manoeuvre." T9 In the organization of the
Western armies "there is nothing to compare to our own orderly
division into batallions and brigades." Their camping is poor, so
they can be easily attacked during the night. "They take no care
about their commissariat." Under privation, their ranks tend to
disintegrate "for they are destitute of all respect for their com-
manders,— one noble thinks himself as good as another, — -and they
will deliberately disobey orders when they grow discontented." 80
This picture of "a Western army of the ninth or tenth century,
the exact period of the development of feudal cavalry," 81 remains
valid, with certain modifications, for the entire age of European
feudalism. Oman describes the hosts of the Crusades as "a mixed
multitude, with little or no organisation.""82 "Their want of dis-
cipline was as well marked as their proneness to plunder; deliberate
disobedience on the part of officers was as common as carelessness
and recklessness on the part of the rank and file. This was always
the case in feudal armies." 83
The modern Egyptian historian, Atiya, ascribes the victory of the
Turks in the last major crusade to the Christians' lack of "unity of
arms and companies" and of "common tactics." Conversely, the
"Turkish army was ... a perfect example of the most stringent
discipline, of a rigorous and even fanatic unity of purpose, of the
concentration of supreme tactical power in the sole person of the
Sultan." 8i
c. Organization of Supplies
The masters of hydraulic society applied the same organizational
devices in the military sphere that they employed with such success
in construction and communication. In many cases, the recruits
for war could be as comprehensively mobilized as the recruits for
toil. The assembled armies moved in orderly fashion, and camping
e. For reasons indicated in the Introduction, above, our presentation includes refer-
ences to Byzantium after the Arab conquests, to the Liao empire, to Maya society,
and to other marginal hydraulic civilizations. The marginal areas of the hydraulic
world are more fully discussed in Chap. 6, below.
62 A STATE STRONGER THAN SOCIETY
and scouting were often highly developed. Whenever feasible, the
armies lived off the land; but numerous means were invoked to cope
with possible shortages.
The Incas had a "superb supply system." 85 The Persian king,
Xerxes, in preparation for his invasion of Greece "laid up stores
of provisions in many places. . . . He inquired carefully about all
the sites, and had the stores laid up in such as were most convenient,
causing them to be brought across from various parts of Asia and
in various ways, some in transports and others in merchantmen."88
The Byzantine generals were definitely concerned with the "com-
missariat" of their troops.87 The Arabs and Turks, at the peak of
their power, paid considerable attention to the supply problem,
which was handled by methods suited to their special form of war-
fare.88 The history of Chinese warfare is filled with references to
precisely this matter.
89
d. Planned Warfare and Military Theory
Feudal warfare, being unfavorable to the development of tactics
and strategy in the proper sense of these terms,90 also failed to develop
military theory. Medieval chronicles contain innumerable references
to battles, and the epics of knighthood never tire of describing
military adventures. But they are concerned essentially with the
prowess of individual fighters. Tactical considerations remain as
irrelevant in literature as in reality.
In the hydraulic world the organization of warfare was elaborately
discussed. Military experts liked to evaluate their experiences in
treatises on tactics and strategy/ The Arthashastra shows Maurya
India well aware of the problems of aggression and defense.91 The
comprehensive Byzantine literature on warfare indicates the many
problems posed by the empire's defense strategy.02
The organizational trends of Islamic warfare are significantly
foreshadowed in a passage of the Koran which assures the love of
Allah to those who fight for him "in ranks as though they were a
compact building." 93 Later many Muslim writers discussed military
questions.94
Yet probably no great hydraulic civilization produced a more ex-
tensive military literature than China. Contrary to the prevailing
notion, Chinese statesmen paid much attention to military prob-
lems; they already did so during the period of the territorial states,
which in this respect as in so many others followed hydraulic rather
/. The military writings of ancient Greece reflect a similar, though differently
rooted, interest in organized warfare.
CHAPTER 3, B 6g
95
than feudal patterns. The author of The Art of War, Sun Tzu,
however brilliant, was not the sole great military theoretician in
this period — Sun Ping and Wu Ch'i rate as high,96 and many of the
ideas Sun Tzu put forth are acknowledged to have been based on
earlier writings.97
Almost every major territorial state had its own school of military
thought.98 But no matter how early the various concepts were first
formulated, it was in the period of the territorial states that they
assumed their classical shape. For very pragmatic reasons the empire
maintained a lively interest in the problems of warfare. To mention
but one piece of evidence, all major official histories from the T'ang
dynasty (618-907) on included special, and often large, sections on
military affairs.
e. Numbers
The masters of the hydraulic state, who monopolized coordinated
military action, could — if they so wished — raise large armies. Their
mobilization potential was entirely different from, and greatly
superior to, that of feudal Europe.
In Medieval England the Normans inherited a military order
which, in addition to a feudal elite, contained elements of an older
tribal levy. The conquerors succeeded in preserving and developing
these rudiments of a national army; but even in England the feudal
state could draw on only a part of the population.
The armies of hydraulic civilizations were not so limited. Their
numerical strength varied with such factors as military techniques
(infantry warfare, chariots, and light or heavy cavalry), economic con-
ditions (a natural or a money economy), and national composition
(indigenous rule or submission under a conquering people). But
potentially it was large.
Where all soldiers fight on foot — either because suitable animals
are lacking or because charioteering or riding are unknown skills —
numbers tend to be important, even when different parts of the
army are differently armed and trained. In ancient Mexico,99 as well
as in Inca Peru,100 the government levied large infantry armies.
Where charioteering or riding are practiced, foot soldiers may count
for less and their number may decrease substantially. The rise of a
money economy favors the recruiting of mercenaries, who may
constitute the only major standing (cadre) army or who may serve
along with a "noble" elite.
And then there is conquest. Often, and especially at the beginning
of a conquest dynasty, the alien ruler will depend on his own na-
64 A STATE STRONGER THAN SOCIETY
tionals to keep his power secure; and he will give little special
training to his newly acquired subjects.101
But no matter how the armies of agrarian despotism are con-
ditioned, the advantages of size rarely disappear altogether. The best
armies of the advanced type are usually composite bodies.102
As noted above, the feudal armies of Medieval Europe were small
units of mounted elite fighters. An army dispatched by Charles the
Bald numbered less than five thousand warriors; and on several later
occasions the records speak only of a couple of hundred horsemen.103
The international armies of the crusades were usually composed of
a few thousand to no more than ten thousand men.9 The Arabs had
brilliant cadre armies of mounted fighters, which were supplemented
by sizable units of auxiliary troops.104 The standing armies of the
first Umayyad caliphs are said to have numbered about sixty thou-
sand men; and the last ruler of this dynasty is credited by Ibn
al-Athlr with a host of 120,000 soldiers.105 Harun al-Rashid once
undertook a summer campaign with 135,000 regular soldiers and
an unspecified number of volunteers.106
Similarly illuminating is a comparison of the armies of feudal
Europe with those of the "Western Caliphate" of Cordoba. Accord-
ing to Islamic sources, Moorish Spain in the 10th century dispatched
twenty thousand horsemen on a northern campaign. Lot doubts
this figure because, in the contemporary European context, it seems
unbelievably large. Says he: "The whole of Europe was unable to
levy at this epoch such a number." 107 His comment is as correct
as it is inconclusive. The distinguished historian himself notes the
enormous revenues collected by the Cordoban caliphate: "What a
contrast to the Carolingian Empire or the Ottoman Empire, states
without finance! Only the emperor of Eastern Rome, the Byzantine
basileus, had perhaps equivalent resources." 10S In another part of his
study he credits the early Byzantine Empire with two armies of
eighteen thousand men each, plus an unknown number of occupa-
tion troops in Africa and Italy 109 — that is, with a force of more,
perhaps considerably more, than 40,000 men. In view of these facts
there is no reason to doubt that Moorish Spain, a hydraulic country
with a very dense population and a revenue far in excess of any
of its European contemporaries, could put into the field a host half
g. Lot, 1946, I: 130, 175, 201. Even at the close of the Crusades, the international
European army that fought in 1396 at Nicopolis against the invading Turks had no
national contingent comprising more than ten thousand warriors, except that of the
immediately threatened Hungarians. The Hungarians are said to have levied some
60,000 men (Atiya, 1934: 67), which would indeed have been something like a levee
en masse.
CHAPTER 3, B 65
as large as the army of the Byzantine Empire, whose revenues, accord-
ing to Lot's own statement, it easily matched.
At the time of Achaemenian Persia, foot soldiers still constituted
the bulk of all fighting men. Herodotus estimates that the Persian
Great King mobilized against the Greeks about two million men,110
including his elite fighters, the ten thousand "Immortals." U1 Del-
briick is certainly justified in doubting that any such large force
was actually sent to Europe, but his argument becomes problem-
atic to the extreme when he suggests that the invasion army num-
bered only some five or six thousand armed men.112 Nor is there any
reason to reject the possibility that, within its confines, the Persian
empire was able to raise armies of several hundred thousand men.
Munro suggests that Herodotus misinterpreted an official Persian
source when he estimated Persia's total armed strength at 1,800,000
men. Munro himself assumes that Xerxes could muster 360,000 men
and that the expeditionary force against Greece might have num-
bered 1 80,000. h
The size of India's earlier armies, which appears "incredible at
first sight," 113 becomes plausible through comparison with the figures
we have for the later phase of Muslim India. According to Greek
sources, on the eve of the Maurya empire King Mahapadma Nanda
is said to have had 80,000 horsemen, 200,000 foot soldiers, 8,000
chariots, and 6,000 fighting elephants; n* and the figures given for
Chandragupta's host are, with the exception of the cavalry, much
larger, totaling "690,000 in all, excluding followers and attend-
ants." 115 Data for later periods claim armies of 100,000 foot soldiers
in the Andhra kingdom and hundreds of thousands to several million
soldiers under the last Southern Hindu kings116 and the great
Muslim rulers.117
In ancient China elite units of charioteers fought alongside large
detachments of foot soldiers. During the later part of the Chou
dynasty cavalry began to supplement the chariots, but apparently
the new composite armies were more rather than less numerous.
On the eve of the imperial period the leading territorial states are
said to have mobilized three and a half million foot soldiers, plus
an undefined number of charioteers and over thirty thousand horse-
men.118
The Liao empire had, in the ordus, a cadre cavalry of about fifty
h. See Munro, 1939: 271-3. Eduard Meyer (GA, IV, Pt. 1: 5) states that Herodotus'
description of Xerxes' army, like the list of Darius' tributes and other specific pieces
of information, was based on authentic Persian sources. Munro (ibid., 271) feels certain
that Herodotus' list of Xerxes' army was substantially the reproduction of "an
official document."
66 A STATE STRONGER THAN SOCIETY
to sixty thousand fighters; and its records boast a militia of a million
men.110 Under the Sung dynasty (960-1279) the Chinese government
is said to have trained — poorly, but nevertheless trained — a standing
army of more than one million soldiers.120 The Banners of the
Manchu dynasty were a standing army that at least during the first
phase constituted a highly qualified cavalry elite. At the end of the
19th century these armies, which included Manchu, Mongol, and
Chinese Bannermen, totaled 120,000 soldiers. In addition, the gov-
ernment also had an essentially Chinese "Green" Army, which
numbered some five to six hundred thousand men.121
/. Percentages
While noting this, we have to remember that the hydraulic civili-
zations that maintained large armies generally also had large popu-
lations. Yet different external and internal conditions made for a
wide range in the percentages of the total population included in
the fighting forces.
The army of late Ch'ing probably constituted less than 0.2 per
cent of the total population. In the Han empire every able-bodied
peasant was obliged to render both labor and defense service. Theo-
retically this affected 40 per cent of the rural population 122 or some-
thing like 32 per cent of the entire population. The cadre army
of the Liao dynasty amounted to about one per cent of the popula-
tion. The peasant militia comprised, on paper, about 20 per cent.
Herodotus' data, as interpreted by Munro, suggest that in Achaeme-
nian Persia out of a population of less than twenty millions 123 about
1.8 per cent could be mobilized. Assuming that the population of
late Chou China was as large as that of the Han empire at its best,
namely about sixty millions (which probably it was not), the average
mobilization potential of the great absolutist territorial states would
have been almost 6 per cent.
Of course, there is no evidence that in any of these cases an attempt
was made to realize the full mobilization potential. The Sung govern-
ment, which in the 11th century levied a million soldiers from
almost twenty million families, that is, from almost one hundred
million people, was actually drafting slightly more than one per
cent of its population.
Comparison with ancient Greece and feudal Europe is instructive.
In an emergency all able-bodied free men of a Greek city state could
be mobilized. During the 5th century B.C., Athens may temporarily
have had under arms over 12 per cent of the total population, and
something like 20 per cent of all free persons.12*
CHAPTER 3, C 67
The army that the German emperor raised in 1467 may have repre-
sented 0.15 per cent of the total population of twelve millions, and
Charles the Bald's above-mentioned army about 0.05 per cent of
what is estimated to have been the population of France.125 Thus
the extremely low percentage for the late Ch'ing period still is
higher than the German figure for 1467, and it is almost four times
higher than the figure for gth-century France. The difference be-
tween the feudal ratio and our other hydraulic percentages is
enormous.
To be sure, in Medieval Europe the feudal lords, monasteries, and
burgher towns had many more soldiers; but these soldiers, being
in excess of the agreed-upon service quota, were not obliged to
fight in the armies of their supreme overlord. The feudal govern-
ment was too weak to mobilize more than a fraction of the nation's
able-bodied men; the agrodespotic regimes, like the ancient city
states, were not so handicapped. Technical and political considera-
tions might induce them to employ only a small percentage of
their subjects for military purposes. But compared to feudal con-
ditions, even relatively small armies of hydraulic states tended to be
quantitatively impressive; and the mass armies of agromanagerial
regimes completely exceeded both in absolute and relative terms
the armies of comparable feudal governments.
G. THE ACQUISITIVE POWER OF
THE HYDRAULIC STATE
1. Organizational and Bureaucratic Prerequisites
The men who direct the constructional and organizational enter-
prises of hydraulic society can do so only on the basis of an appro-
priately regulated income. Special modes of acquisition emerge
therefore, together with special modes of construction and organiza-
tion.
The acquisition of a steady and ample governmental revenue in-
volves a variety of organizational and bureaucratic operations as
soon as the hydraulic commonwealth outgrows local dimensions;
and the need for such devices becomes particularly great when the
administrative and managerial functions are fulfilled by numerous
full-time officials. Gradually the masters of the hydraulic state
become as much concerned with acquisitive operations as with their
hydraulic, communicational, and defense tasks. As will be shown
below, under certain conditions taxation and related methods of
proprietary control may flourish together with an integrated army
and a state post without any relevant hydraulic enterprises.
68 a state stronger than society
2. Labor on the Public Fields and/or the
Land Tax
The incipient hydraulic community may make no special arrange-
ments for the support of its leadership. However, the consolidation
of hydraulic conditions is generally accompanied by a tendency to
free the chief from agricultural work in order that he may devote
himself completely to his communal secular or religious functions.
To this end the tribesmen cooperate on the chief's land, as they do
on the irrigation ditches, defense works, and other communal enter-
prises.
The Suk, who give only a fraction of their economic effort to
hydraulic agriculture, have no public land; but in the Pueblos the
commoners are rallied for work on the cacique's fields.1 This is done
largely by persuasion; but coercion is not shunned when the
situation requires it.° In the larger communities of the Chagga
the ruler wields more power and disposes over much land. The
communal work involved in its cultivation is by no means light,
but the tribesmen receive little or no compensation for doing it —
at most some meat and a few swallows of beer at the conclusion of
their tasks. Thus the Chagga commoner who tells his white friend,
"For you we are working, not as in the corvee, but as on our own
fields," 2 manifestly performs his agricultural corvee duty without
enthusiasm.
The masters of a developed hydraulic state depend for their
maintenance on the population's surplus labor or surplus produce,
on the cash equivalent of such produce, or on a combination of all,
or some, of these sources. Work on government (and temple) fields
was regular practice in Inca Peru, Aztec Mexico,6 and throughout
the greater part of Chou China. The extensive temple lands of the
Sumerian temple cities were cultivated in the main by soldier-
peasants, who constituted the bulk of the temple personnel; but
the communal farmers apparently delivered only a fixed part of their
crop to the storehouses, and this they did personally and directly.3
a. Aitken (1930: 385) juxtaposes "the gay working parties of the Hopi" to the
"compulsory work for the priest-chief and on the communal irrigation ditches" in the
Rio Grande Pueblos. Significantly, the work on the chief's field was directed by the
war chief, the chief disciplinary agent in the Pueblos (see White, 1932: 42, 45; ibid.,
1942: 97 ff. and 98, n. 10; also Parsons, 1939, II: 884, 889), and this was the case not
only in the hydraulically more compact eastern Pueblos but in the western Pueblos
as well.
b. Maya commoners, like the members of the Mexican calpulli, cultivated special
land for the "lords," the representatives of the local and central government (see
Landa, 1938: 104).
CHAPTER 3, C 69
The Sumerian arrangement contrasts sharply with the coordinated
work teams of the Inca villages * and the "thousands of pairs" that,
according to an old Chinese ode, jointly tilled the public fields in
early Chou times.5 In Pharaonic Egypt the bulk of all arable land
seems to have been assigned to individual peasants, who, after the
harvest had been gathered, delivered part of their crop to the ap-
propriate officials.6
State farms ("domains")," on which special groups of serving men
were employed, occurred in a number of hydraulic civilizations;
but except for pre-Conquest America and Chou China, the majority
of all hydraulic states d seem to have preferred the land tax to corvee
labor on large government fields. Why?
There is no consistent correlation between the predominance of a
natural economy and the predominance of the public land system.
International trade and money-like means of exchange were more
developed in Aztec Mexico than in the Old and Middle Kingdoms
of Egypt. Possibly the absence — or presence — of agricultural labor
animals exerted a more basic influence. Peasants who, without bene-
fit of such animals, tilled the land with a digging stick (as they did
in ancient Peru and Meso-America) or with a hoe (as they did in
the greater part of Chou China), may be effectively coordinated in
semimilitary teams, even when they work irrigated fields, whereas
plowing teams function more effectively when permitted to operate
as separate units on separate fields.
Significantly, plowing with oxen spread in China during the final
phase of the Chou dynasty 7 that witnessed the gradual abolition of
the public field system. The peasants of Lagash, who for the most
part seem to have worked the temple land individually, were en-
tirely familiar with the use of agricultural labor animals. So were
the peasants of Pharaonic Egypt and of Hindu and Muslim India.
Thus most of the hydraulic states, in which work animals were used
in cultivation, were maintained by the production of individual
farmers and not by the joint effort of an agricultural corvee.
c. State farms, sita, flourished in India during the later part of the first millennium
B.C. (ArthafSstra, 1926: 177 ff.). These farms, however, must be distinguished from the
Mogul khalsa, which is often referred to as the rajah's "domain." Unfortunately, the
term "domain" has been applied both to large sectors of public land ("the king's land")
and to limited farmlike estates. The Mogul khalsa certainly falls within the first
category. According to Baden-Powell (1896: 198), the Mogul rulers used the term
khalsa to designate "the whole of the lands paying revenue direct to the Treasury."
d. Traces of public fields are reported for certain regions of India. Whether they
reflect primitive tribal institutions, possibly of Dravidian or pre-Dravidian origin, is an
open question (see Baden-Powell, 1896: 179, 180; ibid., 1892, I: 576 ff.; Hewitt, 1887:
622 ff.).
7°
A STATE STRONGER THAN SOCIETY
The following table indicates different forms in which a number
of representative hydraulic governments obtained their rural reve-
nues.
Table 3. Rural Revenue of Hydraulic Governments
REPRESEN TATI VES
SOURCE OF REVENUE
'"Public" Land Taxes
Essentially
in Kind
Partly in Kind,
Partly in Cash
Tribal societies:
Suk
Pueblos
Chagga
+
+
Hawaii
(+)' +
Ancient America:
Inca Peru
Mexico
+
The Near East:
Sumerian temple cities
Babylonia
Pharaonic Egypt
Hellenistic and Roman
Early Byzantium
The Arab caliphates
Ottoman Turkey
(Lagash)
period
+ '
+
+
+
+
+
+
India
traces 4.
China:
Early Chou
Late Chou
The Imperial period (roughly)
+
Documented Transition
+
Key
4. Feature developed
— Feature undeveloped
or absent
/. Some.
2. Individual responsibility
•
3. Universality and Weight of the Hydraulic Tax
Claim
The fact that work on the public fields was usually shared by all
corviable adult males indicates the power of the hydraulic leader-
ship to make everyone contribute to its support. The establishment
of a money economy goes hand in hand with greater differentiations
in property, class structure, and national revenue. But the hydraulic
state, as the master of a huge organizational apparatus, continues to
impose it fiscal demands on the mass of all commoners. Comparison
shows that in this respect it was much stronger than the governments
of other agrarian societies.
CHAPTER 3, C 71
In classical Athens "the dignity of the citizen could not submit to
personal taxes." 8 When the famous city "already held the hegemony
in Greece, she had neither regular taxes nor a treasury"; 9 and her
national support came essentially from customs and oversea revenues.
In republican Rome the free citizens were equally eager to keep
public expenses low. The only major direct tax, the tributum,
amounted to 0.1-0.3 per cent of the taxed person's property.6 In
both cases the nongovernmental forces of society kept the adminis-
trative apparatus small in both personnel and budget, distinguished
office holders receiving only an insignificant salary or none.
The rulers of Medieval Europe supported themselves essentially
from their personal domains, which comprised only a fraction of
the nation's territory. The occasional or regular fees which they
collected in their wider territory were so limited that they dem-
onstrate the weakness rather than the strength of the sovereign's
fiscal power. The Norman conquerors pioneered in establishing a.
stronger state; but for reasons discussed below even they were able
to impose taxes on all their subjects only intermittently.10 After a
century of struggle a mighty knighthood restricted the king's right
to levy taxes without the consent of the "common council" to the
three "aids," as was the custom in almost every feudal country on
the continent.
It is with these agrarian societies, and not with the proto-industrial
and industrial West, that the great societies of the East must be
compared. The masters of hydraulic agriculture spread their tax-
collecting offices as widely as their registering and mobilizing
agencies. All adult males were expected to toil, fight, and pay when-
ever the state willed it. This was the rule. Exemptions had to be
especially granted, and even when granted, they were often canceled
either after a prescribed period or when the grantor's reign ended.
Rural revenue was calculated in varying ways. Sometimes adult
males, sometimes family "heads," and sometimes land units formed
the basis for assessment. In Babylonia the land tax was collected
even from soldiers who held service fields.11 The government might
demand as a general land tax 20 per cent of the annual crop. The
same official rate is suggested also for the New Kingdom of Pharaonic
Egypt.12 In India during the later part of the first millennium B.C.
it was one-twelfth, one-sixth, or one-fourth of the crop. The
Arthashastra permits the king, in an emergency, to take up to one-
third (instead of one-fourth) of the crop of the cultivator of good
irrigated land.13 Many different rate-scales are recorded for late
Chou and imperial China. Originally the Islamic regulations made
e. Originally taxable property was confined to land, slaves, and animals; later it
included property of all kinds (Schiller, 1893: 196; cf. Homo, 1927: 237).
72 A STATE STRONGER THAN SOCIETY
distinctions mainly in accordance with creed; but gradually condi-
tions became much more involved; and, of course, they differed
widely in time and space. The many arguments about heavy taxation
show that, under Islamic rule, the land tax was as burdensome, and
tended to become as universal, as in other parts of the hydraulic
world.
A government that keeps to the official rates is considered just;
but most governments preferred material to moral satisfaction.
Many a sovereign went beyond the letter of the law. The clay tablets
of Babylonia indicate that the state, which theoretically was content
with about 10 per cent, occasionally raised the tax "to 1/5, 1/4, 1/3,
and even one half" of the crop.14
Nor is this all. The payments, which appear in official lists, are in
most cases below, and often far below, the payments which the
tax gatherers actually extracted. Even in the most rational of all
hydraulic states the higher echelons of the bureaucracy found it
difficult to exert full control over their subordinates. Often the very
effort to compel complete delivery was lacking.
The distribution of the total tax income among the various strata
and categories of the officialdom varied greatly. The divergencies
are highly significant for the distribution of power within the
bureaucracy; but they are irrelevant from the point of view of the
state as a whole. The fiscal power of the hydraulic apparatus state
must be measured by the total tax that the bureaucracy in its
entirety is able to extract from the nongovernmental population in
its entirety. Contrasted with the almost complete absence of uni-
versal and direct taxation in the city states of ancient Greece and
in Rome, and compared with the pathetically feeble fiscal policy
of feudal Europe, the scope and strength of the hydraulic system
of taxation is striking.
4. Confiscation
The hydraulic state, which asserts its fiscal power so effectively in
the countryside, pursues a similar policy also toward artisans, mer-
chants, and other owners of mobile property not protected by
special prerogatives. The fact is so obvious that in the present
context we shall refrain from discussing the methods invoked for
taxing handicraft and commerce. However, another acquisitive fea-
ture of hydraulic statecraft does deserve comment: the seizure of
conspicuous property by outright confiscation.
An association of free men may ask of itself whatever sacrifices
it holds necessary for the common weal; and occasionally it may
CHAPTER 3, C 73
employ the weapon of confiscation against criminals or excessively
powerful men/ But arbitrary confiscation as a general policy is
characteristic of a genuinely absolutist regime. Having established
unrestricted fiscal claims, such a regime can modify them at will. In
addition, it can encroach on private property even after all regular
and irregular taxes have been paid.
Under simpler conditions of power and class, there is little or no
large independent business property; and whatever confiscation
occurs essentially hits members of the ruling group. Under more
differentiated conditions, business wealth becomes a favorite target,
but attacks on the property of officials do not cease.
Large landed property is by no means immune to confiscation. But
it is more readily accessible to taxation than are precious metals, jew-
els, or money, which can be hidden with relative ease and which
are indeed carefully hidden by all except the most powerful members
of the apparatus government. The confiscatory measures of the
hydraulic state therefore hit with particular harshness the owners
of mobile — and concealed — property.
The declared reasons for confiscating the property of officials and
other members of the ruling class are almost invariably political
or administrative. The political reasons include diplomatic blunders,
conspiracy, and treason; the administrative, mismanagement and fis-
cal irregularities. Serious crimes frequently lead to the wrongdoer's
complete political and economic ruin; lesser ones to temporary or
permanent demotion and total or partial confiscation. Businessmen
are primarily prosecuted for tax evasion, but they too may become
involved in a political intrigue. In the first instance they may be
partially expropriated; in the second, they may pay with their entire
fortune and with their life.
Within the ruling class, conspiracies to replace the ruler or an
important dignitary occur periodically, and particularly during times
of insecurity and crisis. Wanton persecutions are equally frequent.
A power center which is both accuser and judge may declare any
activity criminal, whatever the facts. Manufactured evidence appears
with great regularity; and legally disguised political purges are
undertaken whenever the masters of the state apparatus deem them
expedient.
The danger of being persecuted is augmented by the fact that
under conditions of autocratic power the majority of all officials
and the bulk of all wealthy businessmen tend to commit acts that,
/. For confiscation in ancient Greece, see Busolt, GS, II: nogff. The confiscations
during the last phase of republican Rome reflect the rise of uncontrolled Orientally
despotic power (see below, Chap. 6).
74 A STATE STRONGER THAN SOCIETY
legally speaking, are crimes, or may be so interpreted. At the court
and/or in the administration there are always individuals or groups
that try to promote their own interests by winning the favor of the
ruler or other persons of high rank. The sovereign and his close
relatives or friends, the chancellor (vizier) or other prominent mem-
bers of the bureaucracy are all potential targets of political intrigues.
And in an atmosphere of absolutist power, secrecy and quasicon-
spiratorial methods appear perfectly normal. This being the case, the
dominant center has little difficulty in pinning the label of conspiracy
on whomever it wishes to destroy.
To be sure, many persons who engage in such intrigues are never
brought to book; and many others escape with minor bruises. In
periods of prosperity and calm this is by no means rare. But
politically phrased accusations are an essential feature of the abso-
lutist order; and any unusual tension may spell the doom of many
individuals or groups.
In the administrative sphere the borderline is similarly fluid, and
the possibilities of disaster are similarly great. Many officials have
to make decisions regarding goods or money; and in the absence of
rational methods of procedure and supervision, deviations from
prescribed standards are as usual as the attempts to increase personal
income are alluring. The classic of Hindu statecraft describes the
almost unlimited opportunities for embezzlement offered by such
conditions. In what amounts to a veritable catalogue, the Arthashas-
tra mentions some forty ways in which government funds may be
diverted.15 The author of the Arthashastra doubts whether any per-
son can resist so many tempting opportunities. "Just as it is im-
possible not to taste the honey or the poison that finds itself at the
tip of the tongue, so it is impossible for a government servant not
to eat up, at least, a bit of the king's revenue." 16
The wealthy businessman is equally vulnerable. Taxation being
the prerogative of a government whose declared demands are heavy
and whose agents tend to go beyond the official demands, the private
men of property seek to protect themselves as best they can. They
hide their treasure in the ground. They entrust it to friends. They
send it abroad.* In brief, they are driven to commit acts which make
most of them potential fiscal criminals.
In many instances their efforts are successful, particularly when
they are buttressed by well-placed bribes. But a technical error or a
g. In classical India "capital wealth was hoarded, either in the house — in large
mansions over the entrance passage . . . under the ground, in brazen jars under the
river bank, or deposited with a friend" (C. A. F. Rhys-Davids, 1922: 219).
CHAPTER 3, C 75
change in the bureaucratic personnel may shatter the uneasy balance;
and warranted accusations combined with trumped-up charges will
initiate actions that may ruin the accused businessman economically,
and perhaps also physically.
In Pharaonic Egypt officials were the essential targets of confis-
catory actions. Members of the bureaucracy who were found guilty
of a major crime were severely punished. A demotion usually in-
volved the loss of revenue and property, including whatever fields
the culprit possessed either in the form of office land or as a sine-
cure.17 At the beginning of a new dynasty the new ruler resorted
to such measures to consolidate his position.18
Disobedience to the Pharaoh, even when conspiracy was not in-
volved, might be severely punished. A decree of the Fifth Dynasty
threatened "any official or royal intimate or agricultural officer,"
who disregarded a certain royal order, with the confiscation of his
"house, fields, people, and everything in his possession." The cul-
prit himself was to be reduced to the status of a corvee laborer.19
The history of Chinese bureaucracy abounds with incidents of
demotion and confiscation. When the Ch'ing emperor, Kao-tsung
(reign-title Ch'ien-lung) died, his all-powerful minister, Ho Shen, was
immediately arrested and "although out of respect to the memory
of his master he was permitted to take his own life, his huge
accumulation of silver, gold, precious stones, and other forms of
wealth, was confiscated." 20
The expropriation of officials for administrative and fiscal offenses
demonstrates the vulnerability of almost all officials. Again the
Arthashdstra neatly formulates the crux of the matter. Since every
official who deals with the king's revenue is inevitably tempted to
embezzle, the government must use skilled spies 21 and informers 22
to aid in the recovery of the state's property. Crude criteria deter-
mine whether an official is guilty or not. Whoever causes a reduction
of the revenue "eats the king's wealth." 23 Whoever is seen enjoy-
ing the king's possessions is guilty.24 Whoever lives in a miserly way
while accumulating and hoarding wealth is guilty.25 The king may
"squeeze them after they have drunk themselves fat, he may transfer
them from one job to another so that they do not devour his property
or that they may vomit up what they devoured." 26
Of course, in all these matters discrimination is of the essence.
The king should treat petty crimes indulgently.27 And he should
also be lenient when circumstances permit. Do not prosecute even
for a serious crime, if the offender "has the support of a strong
party"; but "he who has no such support shall be caught hold
76 A STATE STRONGER THAN SOCIETY
o£" and, the commentary adds, "be deprived of his property." 28
These bald maxims do not even bother with an appearance of
justice.
Confiscation may be partial or total; and it may be invoked during
the victim's lifetime or after his death. Post-mortem expropriation
is frequently made easy by the fact that the deceased's family is no
longer influential. In 934 the Abbassid caliph seized the entire
property of his deceased vizier, al-Muhallabi, squeezing money even
from his servants, grooms, and sailors.29 After the death of the
mighty North Persian vizier, the as-Sahib, "his house was surrounded
at once; the ruler searched it, found a bag with receipts for over
150,000 dinars, which had been deposited out of town. They were
cashed without delay, and everything contained in the house and
treasure room was brought into the palace." 30 After the death of
the great general, Bejkem, in 941, the caliph "sent immediately to
the house, dug everywhere, and gathered two millions of gold and
silver. Eventually he ordered the earth in the house to be washed,
and this yielded a further 35,000 dirhem," but it is doubtful whether
he found the chests of money that Bejkem had buried in the desert.31
Persons suspected of having defrauded the government suffered
all manner of mistreatment. The caliph al-Qadir (991-1031) had his
predecessor's mother severely tortured. After her resistance was
broken, she handed over her ready cash as well as the proceeds from
the sale of her land.32
The confiscation of business fortunes follows a similar pattern. As
stated above, any prosecution could be justified politically; and
the international connections of the big merchants made political
accusation easy. But in the majority of cases the offense was openly
declared to be fiscal in nature. Frequently the line between a special
tax (for a military campaign or other emergencies) and partial con-
fiscation is hard to draw; but whatever the pretext, the consequences
for the victim could be grim. The Arthashastra encourages the king
to enlarge his treasure by demanding money from rich persons
according to the amount of their property.33 He may squeeze such
persons "vigorously, giving them no chance to slip away. For they
may bring forth what others hold (for them), and sell it." 3*
In the case of political accusation, spies and agents could be de-
pended upon to supply the required evidence. A middle-class
"traitor" might be framed in several ways. An agent could commit
a murder on a businessman's doorstep. The owner could then be
arrested and his goods and money appropriated.36 Or an agent could
smuggle counterfeit money, tools for counterfeiting, or poison into
CHAPTER 3, C 77
the house of the potential victim, or plant a sign of allegiance to
some other king on his property, or produce a "letter" from an
enemy of the state.36 Theoretically these measures were only to
be invoked when the victim was known to be wicked; ST but along
with other devices they are recommended in a chapter discussing
ways for replenishing the treasury. History shows how ready the
average despot was to use them for precisely this purpose. "Just as
fruits are gathered from a garden as often as they become ripe, so
revenue shall be collected as often as it becomes ripe. Collection
of revenue or of fruits, when unripe, shall never be carried on,
lest their source may be injured, causing immense trouble." 38
In the Islamic world the death of a wealthy man provided the
government with untold opportunities for decimating or liquidating
his possessions. "Woe to him," wails an Arab text of the gth century,
"whose father died rich! For a long time he was kept a prisoner
in the house of misfortune, and he [the unjust official] said [to the
son]: 'Who knows that you are his son?' And if he said: 'My neighbor
and whoever knows me,' then they tore his mustache until he grew
weak. And they beat and kicked him generously. And he stayed
in closest captivity until he threw the purse before them." 39 During
certain periods of the Abassid caliphate, "the death of a rich private
person was a catastrophe for his whole circle, his bankers and friends
went into hiding, objection was raised against the government's
inspecting the testament . . . and eventually the family bought
itself off with a major payment." 40
To be sure, violence and plunder are not the monopoly of any
society. But the hydraulic mode of confiscation differs in quality
and dimension from the acts of arbitrary violence committed in
other higher agrarian civilizations. In classical Greece it was not an
overwhelmingly strong government but the community of propertied
and (later also) propertyless citizens who checked a potentially over-
powerful leader by sending him into exile and seizing his wealth.
In Medieval Europe the rulers had only a small staff of officials, so
small a staff indeed that intrabureaucratic struggles of the Oriental
kind had little chance to develop. The conflicts between the feudal
centers of power were many and often violent; but the rival forces
fought it out more often on the battlefield than in camera. And
those who wished to destroy their enemies by tricks preferred the
ambush to the legal frame-up. The opportunities for using the
first device were as numerous as those for using the second were
rare.
As to the fate of businessmen, men of property in classical Greece
78 A STATE STRONGER THAN SOCIETY
were not plagued by heavy direct taxes; and their medieval counter-
parts were extremely well protected against the fiscal claims of
territorial or national overlords. Like the former, the burghers of
the semi-independent guild cities were in no permanent danger
of being arrested, questioned, tortured, or expropriated by the
officials of a centralized autocracy. True, medieval trade caravans
were held up and robbed as they moved from town to town. But
within the confines of their walled cities the artisans and merchants
enjoyed reasonable safety of person and possession.
The rulers of European absolutism schemed as ruthlessly and
killed as mercilessly as did their Eastern confreres. However, their
power to persecute and appropriate was limited by the landed nobles,
the Church, and the cities, whose autonomy the autocratic overlords
could restrict, but not destroy. In addition to this, the representa-
tives of the new central governments saw definite advantages in
developing the newly rising capitalistic forms of mobile property.
Emerging from an agrarian order, which they had never controlled
or exploited in the hydraulic way, the Western autocrats readily
protected the incipient commercial and industrial capitalists, whose
increasing prosperity increasingly benefited their protectors.
In contrast, the masters of hydraulic society spun their fiscal web
firmly over their country's agrarian economy. And they were under
no pressure to favor the urban capitalists as did the postfeudal
Western rulers. At best, they treated what capitalist enterprise there
was like a useful garden. At worst, they clipped and stripped the
bushes of capital-based business to the stalk.
D. HYDRAULIC PROPERTY— WEAK PROPERTY
1. Four Ways of Weakening Private Property
In a number of stratified civilizations the representatives of private
property and enterprise were sufficiently strong to check the power
of the state. Under hydraulic conditions the state restricted the de-
velopment of private property through fiscal, judicial, legal, and
political measures.
In the preceding pages we have discussed the pertinent fiscal and
judicial methods (taxes, frame-ups, and confiscations). Before turning
to the political aspect of the matter we must first deal with a legal
institution which, perhaps more than any other, has caused the
periodic fragmentation of private property: the hydraulic (Oriental)
laws of inheritance.
CHAPTER 3, D ^g
2. Hydraulic Laws of Inheritance: the Principle
Throughout the hydraulic world the bulk of a deceased person's
property is transferred not in accordance with his will but in
accordance with customary or written laws. These laws prescribe an
equal, or approximately equal, division of property among the heirs,
most frequently the sons and other close male relatives. Among
the sons, the eldest often has special duties to fulfill. He must care
for his mother and his younger siblings; and he may be primarily
responsible for the religious obligations of the family. The laws take
all this into account. But their modification does not upset the basic
effect: the parceling out of a deceased person's estate among his
heirs.
3. The Application
In Pharaonic Egypt the eldest son, who had important ceremonial
tasks, received a larger share of his father's estate. But the remaining
children also could claim a legally prescribed share of the total.1
The principle of more or less even division is clearly stated in the
Babylonian code. A present made by a father during his lifetime to
the first-born is not included in the final settlement, but "otherwise
they [the sons] shall share equally in the goods of the paternal
estate." 2 Assyrian law is more complicated. Again the eldest son has
an advantage, but all other brothers are entitled to their share.8
In India the eldest son's originally privileged position was grad-
ually reduced, until the difference between him and other heirs
virtually disappeared.4 In the Islamic world inheritance was com-
plicated by a number of factors, among them the freedom to will up
to one-third of an estate.0 But the system of "Koranic heirs" is
definitely fragmenting: it strictly prescribes division among several
persons.5 The last imperial code of China reasserts what seems to have
been regular practice during the whole period of "developed" pri-
vate property. A family's possessions must be divided equally among
all sons. Failure to comply was punishable by up to one hundred
blows with a heavy stick.6
In Inca Peru the bulk of all land was regulated by the state and
its local agencies. Some grants made to relatives of the ruler or
meritorious military or civil officials might be transferred heredi-
tarily; but the usufruct from the inherited land was subject to equal
a. The Koran prescribes a highly intricate division of heritable property (Koran 4.
7-»4)-
80 A STATE STRONGER THAN SOCIETY
division.7 In Aztec Mexico the bulk of all land was occupied by
village communities and thus barred from full transfer at the will
of the possessor. Some land, privately held by members of the ruling
group, was after the holder's death divided among his heirs.8
4. The Effect
a. On Regulated Villages
A law of inheritance which prescribes a periodic division of private
property affects different groups in hydraulic society differently.
Peasants who live in regulated village communities may divide the
movable property of a deceased family head, but not his fields. These
must be kept intact or, from time to time, reassigned according to
the recognized prerogatives or needs of the members of the com-
munity.
b. On Holders of Small Private Property
Entirely new problems arise when the peasants own their land
privately and freely. Scarcity of food may reduce the number of
potential heirs, and this is an important demographic factor in all
hydraulic societies. However, the will to live often outwits want; and
despite periodic or perpetual shortages, the population tends to
increase. This inevitably means smaller farms, more toil, more
hardship, and, frequently, flight, banditry, and rebellion.
Demographic pressures are certainly not lacking in regulated
villages. But they are particularly serious where private landed
property is the rule. For in such areas the impoverishment of the
economically weaker elements is not counterbalanced, or retarded,
by the corporate economy of the village, which prevents both in-
dividual economic advance and collapse.
c. On Holders of Large Private Property
Among the wealthy property owners another factor of hydraulic
demography becomes important: polygamy. In hydraulic civiliza-
tions rich persons usually have several wives; and the greater their
fortune, the larger their harem is apt to be. The possibility of having
several sons increases proportionately. But several sons mean several
heirs; and several heirs mean a quicker reduction of the original
property through equal inheritance.
Commenting on the dynamics of Chinese traditional society, two
modern social scientists, Fei and Chang, find it "all too true" that
CHAPTER 3, D 8l
in this society "land breeds no land." Why? "The basic truth is that
enrichment through exploitation of land, using the traditional
technology, is not a practical method of accumulating wealth."
Landed wealth tends to shrink rather than to grow; and this essen-
tially because of the law of inheritance; "so long as the customary
principle of equal inheritance among siblings exists, time is a strong
disintegrative force in landholding." 9
The Islamic law of inheritance has a similarly disintegrative effect.
Wherever it prevails, it "must in the long run lead to the inevitable
parceling out even of the largest property. . . ." 10 The land grants
in the Inca empire apparently fared no better. After a few genera-
tions the revenue received by individual heirs might shrink to in-
significance.11
5. Pertinent Western Developments
a. The Democratic City States of Ancient Greece
The fragmentation of landed property through more or less equal
inheritance is certainly a significant institution. But are we justified
in considering it characteristic primarily for hydraulic civilizations?
"The rule of dividing up an estate on succession" also operated in
the city states of classical Greece. Consistently applied, it "split up
the land without ceasing." 12 In the 4th century "apart from one
exceptional case, the largest property which Attica could show . . .
measured 300 plethra or 64 acres." Glotz adds: "This state of things
was common to the democratic cities." 1S
b. The United States after the War of Independence
And then there is the fight against entail and primogeniture in the
early days of the United States. During and immediately after the
American Revolution the spokesmen of the young republic vigor-
ously attacked the perpetuities, which were correctly described as
remnants of Europe's feudal tradition. Once the law of entail was
abolished, the colossal aristocratic landholdings quickly dissolved.
"By about the year 1830 most of the great estates of America had
vanished." 14
c. A Spectacular Contrast: the Strength of Landed Property
in Late Feudal and Postfeudal Europe
Similar attempts at breaking the power of large landed property
were made in Europe after the close of the feudal period. The
82 A STATE STRONGER THAN SOCIETY
governments of the new territorial and national states attacked
entail and primogeniture through a variety of measures, statutory
enactments prevailing on the continent and judicial reforms in
England.15 Resourceful protagonists of absolutism lent the struggle
impetus and color. But in the leading countries of Western and
Central Europe the governments were unable for a long time to
abolish the perpetuation of big property. In France this institution
persisted intact until the Revolution, and in a modified form until
1849. In England and Germany it was discarded only in the 20th
century.16
6. Different Social Forces Opposed to
Proprietary Perpetuities
a. Small and Mobile Property
Manifestly, the perpetuation of large landed property may be
opposed by different social forces. The Greek legislators, who, ac-
cording to Aristotle,17 recognized the influence of the equalization
of property on political society, very possibly did not identify them-
selves with one particular social group or class. But their efforts
benefited smaller rural property 18 as well as the new forms of
mobile (urban) property and enterprise. It stands to reason that
the groups which profited from a weakening of big landed property
accomplished this result through methods that became increasingly
effective as the city states became increasingly democratized.
In the young United States Jefferson fought for the abolishment of
entail and primogeniture as a necessary step toward the elimination
of "feudal and unnatural distinctions." 19 And he based his policy on
a philosophy which distrusted commerce and industry as much as it
trusted the independent landowning farmers. Middle and small rural
property may not have been directly represented among those who
wrote the Constitution; 20 but its influence was nevertheless great.
The Revolution, which "was started by protesting merchants and
rioting mechanics," was actually "carried to its bitter end by the
bayonets of fighting farmers." "
And not only this. A few decades after the Revolution the agri-
cultural frontier prevailed so effectively over the commercial and
banking interests of the coastal towns that it "brought about the
declaration of hostilities against England in 1812." M It therefore
seems legitimate to claim that it was a combination of independent
rural (farming) and mobile urban property that brought about the
downfall of the feudal system of entail and primogeniture in the
United States.
CHAPTER 3, D 83
b. The States of Feudal and Postfeudal Europe
The consolidation of feudal and postfeudal landed property in Eu-
rope was challenged by a very different force. At the height of the
conflict the attack was conducted by the representatives of the ab-
solutist state; and the external resemblance to the Oriental version
of the struggle makes it all the more necessary to understand the
exact nature of what happened in the West.
Why were the feudal lords of Europe able to buttress their landed
property to such an extraordinary degree? Because, as indicated
above, in the fragmented society of Medieval Europe the national
and territorial rulers lacked the means to prevent it. Of course, the
sovereign, the most powerful master of land and men, did exercise a
certain public authority.23 He claimed certain military services from
his seigneurs, vassals, or lords; he had certain supreme judicial func-
tions; he was expected to handle the foreign relations of his country;
and his authority was strengthened by the fact that the bulk of his
vassals held their fiefs only as long as they fulfilled the obligations
mentioned in the investiture. Thus the lords were originally posses-
sors rather than owners of their lands; and they remained so, at least
theoretically, even after tenure became hereditary.
This state of affairs has been frequently described. With certain
differences — which became especially important in such countries as
post-Conquest England — it prevailed in the greater part of Western
and Central Europe during the formative period of feudalism. How-
ever, the conventional picture stresses much more strongly the rela-
tion between the feudal lord and his ruler than the relation between
the various lords. From the point of view of proprietary develop-
ment, the second is pivotal.
No matter whether the baron held his fief temporarily or heredi-
tarily, his life was centered in his own castle and not at the royal
court; it was his detached position that determined his personal and
social contacts. The king might claim the military services of his vas-
sal for some few weeks; but beyond this contractually limited period
— which might be extended if proper payments were offered 2* — he
was unable to control his movements. The baron or knight was free
to use his soldiers for private feuds. He was free to engage in the
chase, in tournaments, and in expeditions of various kinds. And most
important, he was free to meet with lordly neighbors who, like him-
self, were eager to promote their joint interests.
The atomized character of the political order stimulated the asso-
ciation of the local and regional vassals, who singly were no match
for the sovereign but who together might successfully oppose him. In
84 A STATE STRONGER THAN SOCIETY
the race between the growth of lordly (and burgher) power on the
one hand and royal power on the other, the rising central govern-
ments found themselves confronted not by the scattered feudal and
urban forces of the early days but by organized estates capable of
defending their economic as well as their social rights.
In England as early as the 11th century the king's tenants-in-chief
were known as berones; originally the term connoted a group rather
than an individual: "that word is not found in the singular." 25 But
it was only when the government tried to check their independence
that the barons felt the need for united action. The final section of
the Magna Carta has been correctly called "the first royal recogni-
tion of the baronial right collectively to coerce the king by force." 2G
Shortly afterward, "totius Angliae nobilitas . . . took an oath each
to the other that they would give the king no answer except a com-
munis responsio." 27 It was in the very century in which the English
lords incorporated themselves as an estate that they laid the founda-
tions for the perpetuation of their lands by entail and primogeni-
ture.28
On the continent the timetable and many other details differed.
But the over-all trend was the same. Applying to their fiefs the prin-
ciple of indivisibility — which, with the abandonment of the feudal
form of military service, had lost its original meaning — the noble
landholders consolidated their property in Spain, Italy, France, and
Germany.29
It is worth noting that the nobles, who kept the late feudal and
postfeudal societies balanced, owed their proprietary success partly
to the attitude of the absolutist bureaucracy. Among the aristocratic
members of this bureaucracy not a few felt a deep affinity for the
landed gentry, to which they were linked by many ties. Torn by con-
flicting proprietary and bureaucratic interests, the representatives of
Western absolutism did not press to the extreme their organized re-
sistance against the privileged big landowners. In consequence, there
emerged out of the womb of feudal society one of the strongest forms
of private property known to mankind.
c. Hydraulic Absolutism Succeeded Where the States of
Occidental Feudalism and Absolutism Failed
In late feudal and postfeudal Europe the state recognized a system
of inheritance for the landed nobles which favored one son at the
expense of all others. And in the modern Western world the state
by and large permitted the individual to dispose over his property at
will. The hydraulic state gave no equivalent freedom of decision
either to holders of mobile property or to the landowners. Its laws of
CHAPTER 3, D 85
inheritance insisted upon a more or less equal division of the de-
ceased's estate, and thereby upon a periodic fragmentation of prop-
erty.
Among primitive peoples living on an extractive economy or on
crude agriculture, the pattern of inheritance apparently varied
greatly; 30 thus it is unlikely that the predecessors of hydraulic soci-
ety in their majority maintained a one-heir system of inheritance
which the hydraulic development had to destroy. In some cases, the
germs of a single-heir system may have had to be eradicated. Where
no such germs existed, the hydraulic rulers made sure that efforts to
undermine the traditional distributive pattern could get nowhere.
They achieved their aim by a multiplicity of methods, among which
the standardization of the fragmenting law of inheritance was only
the most prominent one.
In the later feudal and postleudal societies of the West the landed
nobles were able to create the one-sided system of inheritance called
entail and primogeniture primarily because they were armed and
because they were nationally and politically organized. In hydraulic
society the representatives of private property lacked the strength to
establish similarly consolidated and strong forms of property, first
because the governmental monopoly of armed action prevented the
property holders from maintaining independent military forces, and
second because the governmental network of organization (corvee,
state post and intelligence, integrated army, and universal taxation)
prevented the property holders from protecting their interests by
means of an effective national organization.
In this setting the struggle for or against the divisibility of prop-
erty did not become a clear-cut political issue as it did in ancient
Greece, absolutist Europe, or the United States. And in contrast to
the areas of open conflict the hydraulic world did not favor political
arguments which justified — or challenged — the fragmenting law of
inheritance.
7. The Organizational Impotence of Hydraulic
Property Holders
As an armed and ubiquitously organized force, the hydraulic regime
prevailed in the strategic seats of mobile property, the cities, as well
as in the main sphere of immobile property, the countryside. Its
cities were administrative and military footholds of the government;
and the artisans and merchants had no opportunity to become seri-
ous political rivals. Their professional associations need not have
been directly attached to the state, but they certainly failed to create
strong and independent centers of corporate burgher power such as
arose in many parts of Medieval Europe.
86 A STATE STRONGER THAN SOCIETY
The countryside fared no better. The owners of land were either
wealthy businessmen and as limited in the scope of their organiza-
tion as were the representatives of mobile property, or — and more
often — they were officials or priests, and a part of — or in association
with — the nationally organized bureaucracy. This bureaucracy might
permit its property-holding members or associates to establish local
organizations, such as the Chinese "sash-bearers" (inadequately trans-
lated as "gentry") and as the priests of various temples or creeds. But
it discouraged any attempt to coordinate landed property on a na-
tional scale and in the form of independent corporations or estates.
The holders of family endowments (ivaqfs) in the Islamic Near
East kept their land undivided, because these lands were destined
ultimately to serve religious and charitable purposes. But while the
family waqf temporarily benefited the grantee and his descendants,
it represented neither a secure nor a free and strong form of prop-
erty. Although less frequently singled out for confiscation, the family
waqfs, like the other waqfs, might be seized if the state wished it.
They were taxed; and their beneficiaries never consolidated their
power through a nationwide political organization.
The family waqf resembles in its announced purpose, though
frequently not in its immediate functions, the lands held by temples
and priests. But contrary to the religious functionaries, the holders
of these endowments are conspicuous not for any active participa-
tion in public life but for their rentier-like position. Temple land,
like secular office land, was undivided; but it is indicative of the
relation between the hydraulic state and the dominant religions that
the landholding priests or temples did not engage in any effective
struggle to limit the absolutist state by constitutional checks.
Nor did the landowning members of the bureaucracy — those in
office as well as the nonofficiating "gentry" — organize themselves into
a national body capable of upholding their proprietary rights against
the acquisitive and legal pressures of the state apparatus. They were
content to use their land as a means for comfortable living, leaving
it to those in office to organize and operate a nationally integrated
system of political power. The Chinese general who demonstrated
his political harmlessness by pretending to be exclusively interested
in acquiring land 31 strikingly illustrates the political impotence
of Oriental property, even when it is held by men of the apparatus
itself.6
b. These conditions favored what may be called the introvert character of most
residential architecture in agrobureaucratic society, as juxtaposed to the extrovert
architecture of the corresponding type of buildings in the West. The tendency to
hide luxurious courtyards and dwellings behind a noncommittal facade was not
CHAPTER 3, E 87
E. THE HYDRAULIC REGIME ATTACHES TO ITSELF
THE COUNTRY'S DOMINANT RELIGION
Similar causes led to similar results also in the field of religion.
The hydraulic state, which permitted neither relevant independent
military nor proprietary leadership, did not favor the rise of in-
dependent religious power either. Nowhere in hydraulic society did
the dominant religion place itself outside the authority of the state
as a nationally (or internationally) integrated autonomous church.
1. Sole, Dominant, and Secondary Religions
A dominant religion may have no conspicuous competitors. This
is often the case in simpler cultures, where the only relevant repre-
sentatives of heterodox ideas and practices are sorcerers and witches.
Here the very problem of choice is lacking; and the hydraulic leaders
readily identify themselves with the dominant religion.
Secondary religions usually originate and spread under relatively
differentiated institutional conditions. Wherever such beliefs are
given a chance to persist (non-Hindu creeds in India; Taoism and
Buddhism in Confucian China; Christianity and Judaism under
Islam), the rulers tend with time to identify themselves with the
dominant doctrine. It need scarcely be asserted that in the present
context the word "dominant" merely refers to the social and political
aspects of the matter. It implies no religious value judgment.
Whether the societally dominant religion is also superior in terms
of its religious tenets is an entirely different (and legitimate) ques-
tion, but one which does not come within the scope of the present
study.
2. Religious Authority Attached to the
Hydraulic State
a. The Hydraulic Regime — Occasionally (quasi-) Hierocratic
In seeking to determine the relation between hydraulic power and
the dominant religion, we must first discard a widespread miscon-
ception. In the hydraulic world, as in other agrarian societies,
religion plays an enormous role; and the representatives of religion
tend to be numerous. However, the importance of an institution does
not necessarily imply its autonomy. As explained above, the govern-
ment-supported armies of hydraulic civilizations are usually large,
but the same factors which make them large keep them dependent.
confined to wealthy commoners. It also dominated the men of the apparatus — but,
of course, not their supreme master.
88 A STATE STRONGER THAN SOCIETY
Of course, the patterns of religion cannot be equated with the
patterns of defense. But in both cases size results essentially from
closeness to a governmental machine, which is capable of mobilizing
huge resources of income.
The majority of all hydraulic civilizations are characterized by
large and influential priesthoods. Yet it would be wrong to designate
them as hierocratic, "ruled by priests." Many attempts have been
made to determine the meaning of the word "priest"; and outstand-
ing comparative sociologists, such as Max Weber,1 have provided us
with a wide choice of definitions for a phenomenon whose institu-
tional borders are not easily established.
Obviously the priest has to be qualified to carry out his religious
tasks, which generally include the offering of sacrifices as well as
prayers. A qualified priest may give only a fraction of his time to
his religious duties, the greater part of it being spent to insure
his livelihood, or he may serve professionally, that is, full time.
If we define priestly rule as government rule by professional
priests, then few if any of the major hydraulic states can be so
characterized. In a number of cases the officialdom included many
persons who were trained as priests and who, before assuming a
government position, acted as priests. It is important to note such
a background, because it illuminates the role of the temples in
the ruling complex. But it is equally important to note that when
persons with a priestly background become prominent in the govern-
ment, they do not, as a rule, continue to spend most of their time
fulfilling religious duties. Thus their regimes are not hierocratic in
the narrow sense of the term, but quasihierocratic. The few hydraulic
governments headed by qualified priests are almost all of them of
this latter type.
The hydraulic tribes of the Pueblo Indians are ruled by chiefs
who play a leading part in many religious ceremonies. However,
except for one or a few among them — often only the cacique — these
priest-chiefs spend the bulk of their time in farming. The Pueblo
government is therefore represented by a hierarchy of men who,
though qualified to hold ceremonial offices, are not in their great
majority full-time priests.
The city states of ancient Sumer are said to have been usually
ruled by the head priests of the leading city temples,2 and the
prominent courtiers and government officials, who had an important
role in the administration of the temple estates,3 were quite possibly
also qualified priests.4 But did these men, who were theologically
a. In the history of Sumer, professional priests appear early (Deimel, 1924: 6R.;
Falkenstein, 1936: 58; Meissner, BA, II: 52). The ancient inscriptions mention priests
CHAPTER g, E 89
trained, still have time to fulfill the many religious functions of a
professional priest? Deimel assumes that the priest-kings officiated in
the temples only on particularly solemn occasions.4 Their sub-
ordinates were kept equally busy by their secular duties — and equally
restricted in their religious activities.
The ruler's top-ranking aides, and also no doubt many of his
lower officials, entered the political arena because they were mem-
bers of the country's most powerful economic and military sub-units,
the temples. The governments of the Sumerian temple cities were
therefore quasihierocratic. But even in Sumer the power of the
temples seems to have decreased. The reform of the priest-king,
Urukagina, of Lagash indicates that as early as the third millennium
b.c. leading priestly families tried to secularize the temple land; B
and soon after Urukagina, the great kings of Akkad and Ur succeeded
in transferring some temple lands to the royal domains.6 During
the subsequent Babylonian period the temples ceased to be the
outstanding economic sector of the society, and the bulk of the
high officials were no longer necessarily connected with the priest-
hood.
The Babylonian pattern is much more frequent than the Su-
merian. As a rule, the hydraulic governments were administered by
professional officials who, though perhaps educated by priests, were
not trained to be priests. The majority of all qualified and profes-
sional priests remained occupied with their religious tasks, and the
employment of individual priests in the service of the state did not
make the government a hierocracy.
Among the few attempts at priestly rule in a hydraulic country b
the Twenty -first Dynasty of Pharaonic Egypt seems particularly
worthy of note. But the usurper-founder of this dynasty, Herihor,
who started out as a priest, held a secular government position before
the Pharaoh made him high priest; and he was given this position
not to strengthen but to weaken the power of the leading priest-
hood, that of Amon.c Like the priest-kings of Sumer, the rulers of
Pharaonic Egypt — Herihor included — obviously spent the greater
part of their time in carrying out their governmental tasks. From
the standpoint of ancient Egyptian history, it is significant that out
as well as representatives of secular occupations (Schneider, 1920: 107 ff.; Deimel, 1924:
5 ff.; Falkenstein, 1936: 58 ff.; Deimel, 1932: 444 ff.).
b. Tibet is discussed as a marginal hydraulic society in Chap. 6, below.
c. Kees, 1938: ioff„ 14, 16; cf. Wilson, 1951: 288 ff. Even E. Meyer (GA, II, Pt. 2:
10 ff.), who strongly, and probably unduly, stresses the priestly background of Herihor's
rise to power, feels that the Twenty-first Dynasty did not succeed in establishing "a real
theocracy."
go A STATE STRONGER THAN SOCIETY
of the twenty-six dynasties of the Pharaonic period at best only one
can be classed as quasihierocratic.
b. The Hydraulic Regime — Frequently Theocratic
The constructional, organizational, and acquisitive activities of hy-
draulic society tend to concentrate all authority in a directing center:
the central government and ultimately the head of this government,
the ruler. From the dawn of hydraulic civilization it was upon this
center that the magic powers of the commonwealth tended to con-
verge. The bulk of all religious ceremonies may be performed by a
specialized priesthood, which frequently enjoys considerable free-
dom. But in many hydraulic societies the supreme representative of
secular authority is also the embodiment of supreme religious au-
thority.
Appearing as either a god or a descendant of a god, or as high
priest, such a person is indeed a theocratic (divine) or quasitheocratic
(pontifical) ruler. Obviously, the theocratic regime need be neither
hierocratic nor quasihierocratic. Even if the divine or pontifical
sovereign was trained as a priest, the majority of his officials would
not necessarily have to be so qualified.
The chieftains of the Pueblo Indians and the Chagga, who are
the high priests of their respective communities, occupy a theocratic
position; and the divine quality of the Hawaiian kings is beyond
doubt. However, under primitive agrarian conditions religious and
secular authority are often closely combined, whether cultivation
is carried out by means of irrigation or not.
In contrast to the wide distribution of theocratic institutions
among primitive agrarian peoples, theocracy developed unevenly
in the higher agrarian civilizations. Theocratic or quasitheocratic
trends prevailed in many state-centered hydraulic societies, whereas
they came to nothing in ancient Greece and Medieval Europe.
In Homeric Greece the king was of divine origin,7 and his pre-
eminence in religious matters was so strong that he has been called
the "chief priest." 8 Subsequent democratic developments did not
destroy the relation between state and religion; but they placed the
control of both types of activities in the hands of the citizens. Strictly
supervised by the citizen community, the state religion of ancient
Greece developed neither a clerical hierarchy B nor a closed priestly
order.10 As a rule, those destined to officiate as priests were chosen
by either lot or election.11 Hence they lacked the training which
plays so great a role in professional and self-perpetuating priest-
hoods. The finances of the temples were strictly controlled by politi-
CHAPTER 3, E gi
cal authorities, who in their majority were similarly chosen. More-
over, governmental leaders were not considered divine, nor did they
act as high priests or heads of any coordinated religious order. The
designation "theocracy," which may be applied to the primitive con-
ditions of early Greece, therefore hardly fits the "serving" citizen
state of the democratic period.
In the great agrarian civilizations of Medieval Europe, nontheo-
cratic development went still further. Attempts by Pepin and Char-
lemagne to establish theocratic authority 12 were unable to reverse
the trend toward feudal decentralization. Among the many secondary
centers of proprietary, military, and political power, which restricted
the authority of the national and territorial rulers, the Church
proved eminently effective, since a unified doctrine and an
increasingly unified leadership endowed its quasifeudal local units
with quasi-Oriental organizational strength. After a prolonged period
of intense conflict, the Church gained full autonomy. In the 11th
century the French crown "had given way to the Holy See," 13 and
the German Emperor Henry IV humiliated himself before Pope
Gregory VII. For some time the struggle between secular and eccle-
siastical power continued inconclusively, until Innocent III (i 198—
1216) raised papal authority to such a peak that he could try, al-
though without success, to subordinate the state to the leadership
of the Church.
Among the many manifestations of autonomous ecclesiastical be-
havior the English instance is particularly instructive. In 1215 the
English bishops together with the feudal lords forced King John to
recognize, in the Magna Carta, the legitimacy of a balanced con-
stitutional government. The Carta was " 'primarily' a concession
made 'to God' in favour of the Anglican Church. ... By the first
article the king granted 'the English Church should be free, enjoy
its full rights and its liberties inviolate' and, in particular 'that
liberty which is considered the greatest and the most necessary for
the English Church, freedom of elections.' Article 42 concerning
freedom to leave the kingdom involved for the clergy the extremely
important right to go to Rome without the king's permission." 14
The Church under the Carta was not just one of several groups
of effectively organized feudal landowners. In its national as well
as in its international organization it was different from, and in a
way superior to, the corporations of the secular nobility. Further-
more, it struggled for autonomy as a religious body with specific
religious objectives and claims. But however crucial these peculi-
arities were, the Church could not have checked the power of the
political regime if it had not, at the same time, strengthened the
92 A STATE STRONGER THAN SOCIETY
proprietary and organizational forces of the secular nobility. As the
religious sector of these forces, the Church in the agrarian society
of Medieval Europe became an essentially independent entity.15
In achieving this goal, it fatefully supported the growth of the
balanced late feudal order, which eventually gave birth to modern
Western society.
Thus whether originally they were theocratically ruled or not,
the higher agrarian civilizations of the West did not evolve massive
theocratic power structures. The city states of classical Greece pre-
sented a nontheocratic combination of government and religion; and
in Medieval Europe the secular and religious authorities, far from
establishing an integrated system of Caesaro-Papism, crystallized into
two spectacularly separate bodies.
Hydraulic civilization moved in a radically different direction.
Where tribal hydraulic governments were theocratically shaped, the
original pattern usually persisted even under more complex institu-
tional conditions. And where theocracy was lacking in prehydraulic
times, it frequently emerged as part of the hydraulic development.
A society which provided unique opportunities for the growth of
the governmental machine left no room for the growth of a politi-
cally and economically independent dominant religion. The agro-
managerial sovereign cemented his secular position by attaching to
himself in one form or another the symbols of supreme religious
authority. In some instances his position is not conclusively theo-
cratic, but this is more the exception than the rule. In the majority
of all cases hydraulic regimes seem to have been either theocratic or
quasitheocratic.
The institutional diversity of the hydraulic world precludes a
rigid correlation. But it seems that divine sovereigns appear prima-
rily under less differentiated societal conditions. On a neolithic level
of technology the Incas ruled theocratically over a simple hydraulic
society. The supreme ("Unique," Sapa) Inca was a descendant of the
Sun, and thus divine; 18 and in varying degrees his relatives shared
this status.17 The Sapa Inca performed the most solemn sacrifices,18
ranking ceremonially above the professional high priests, who were
usually chosen from among his uncles or brothers.19 His officials
managed the distribution and cultivation of the temple land,20 and
they administered the storehouses of the temples as well as those of
the secular government.21 Thus the government, headed by a divine
ruler, controlled both the country's secular affairs and the priest-
hood of its dominant religion.
The theocratic development of the Near East is evidenced by
many literary and pictorial records. Arising without any conspicuous
CHAPTER 3, E 93
institutional attachment to — though not without cultural connec-
tions with — Mesopotamia,* the state of ancient Egypt demonstrates
the power potential of a highly concentrated and relatively simple
hydraulic order. The Pharaoh is a god or the son of a god,22 a great
and good god.23 He is the god, Horus,24 a scion of the Sun god, Re.25
He derives "bodily" from his divine parent.28 Being thus distin-
guished, he is the given middleman between the gods and mankind.
Lack of time prevents him from personally attending to most of his
religious duties; 27 but he is a high priest,28 and the priest of all
gods.29 About the exaltedness of his position there can be no doubt.
Originally the temple services were performed in considerable
part by royal officials,30 and the temple administration was managed
by the king's men.31 But even after the crystallization of a sub-
stantial professional priesthood, the state continued to have juris-
diction over the temple revenues; and the Pharaohs appointed the
individual priests.32 This system of control prevailed throughout
the Old and Middle Kingdoms, and even at the beginning of the
New Kingdom. It disintegrated during the period of crisis and un-
rest, which at the end of the Twentieth Dynasty e enabled a high
priest to ascend the throne.33 From the Twenty-second to the
Twenty-fifth Dynasty, Egypt was ruled by Libyan and Nubian con-
querors, but the Pharaohs' divine position persisted despite all
political changes down to the Twenty-sixth and last dynasty.34
In ancient Mesopotamia society was from the dawn of written
history more differentiated than in early Egypt. This may be the
reason — or one of the reasons — why the divinity of the Sumerian
kings is formulated in a relatively complicated way. In contrast to
the Pharaoh who was "begotten by the god— corporeal ized in the
king — and the queen," 35 the Sumerian king is in his mother's womb
"endowed with divine qualities, first of all strength and wisdom." 3G
After his birth he is nurtured by the gods; and enthronement and
coronation confirm his divinization.37 If, as Labat suggests, the
deities recognize the king as divine only after his birth, he is not
the divine offspring of divine parents, but rather their adopted
son.38
The controversy concerning the exact nature of the king's divinity
in ancient Mesopotamia 39 indicates the complexity of the early
Mesopotamian pattern, but it cannot hide the fact that the Sumerian
king, in one way or another, represented supreme divine authority
d. Contact between the two civilizations probably began long before the dawn
of written history (cf. Kees, 1933: 7 ff.).
e. For the establishment of an independent temple economy during the Twentieth
Dynasty see Breasted, 1927, IV: 242 ff.; cf. Rostovtzeff, 1941, I: 281 ff.
94 A STATE STRONGER THAN SOCIETY
on earth.40 He held the position of high priest.41 In principle he was
"the only sustainer of the high priest's office." 42 His administrative
control over the temples was easily maintained, since in the Sumerian
city states all major temples were headed by the priest-king, his wife,
or some other member of his family.43
From the end of the Sumerian period on, the relations between
the governments of Mesopotamia and the temples grew less close,
but the temples were unable to free themselves from the control
of the secular ruler. The king continued to occupy a quasidivine
position, similar to that held by his Sumerian predecessors. As of
old, he had the right to perform the highest religious functions. In
Assyria he did so personally,44 whereas in Babylonia these tasks were
usually delegated to a representative.45 Usually, not always. In the
great "creation" rites at the New Year he played so important a
religious role 48 that "during these ceremonies the sovereign was for
his people really the very incarnation of the gods." 47
In Assyria the government maintained strict administrative and
judicial control over the dominant religion; 48 in Babylonia control
was much less rigid. But here, too, the kings successfully upheld
their right to appoint the high-ranking priests,49 and having been
appointed by the sovereign, "the priest had to swear an oath [of
allegiance] like all other officials." 50
The Achaemenian kings, who through conquest made themselves
masters of the entire Near East, are said to have lacked divinity. Did
they retain in their Persian homeland certain of their earlier non-
theocratic concepts? Or were they worshiped as divine beings by
their Persian subjects, because they were imbued with a divine
substance? 61 Whatever the answer to these questions may be, the
victorious Cyrus adopted in Babylonia "all the elements of Chaldean
monarchy," 52 including royal divinity; and his successors acted
similarly in Egypt. Like all earlier Egyptian rulers known to us,
Darius was called divine: "Horus" and the "good god." 53
The Hellenistic sovereigns of the Ptolemaic and Seleucid empires
quickly learned to combine religious and secular authority.54 Signifi-
cantly the worship of the king was less fully developed at the in-
stitutional fringe of the hydraulic world, in Anatolia. But here, too,
the Hellenistic rulers definitely, if cautiously, sought theocratic
status.55
The Romans adopted many of the institutions of their new
Oriental possessions. Acceptance of the emperor's divinity was
gradual; but the beginnings of emperor worship go back to the early
days of the empire. The cult, which had already been proposed by
Caesar,56 was officially established by the first emperor, Augustus."
67
CHAPTER 3, E 95
In Early Byzantium, Christianity adjusted itself to an autocratic
regime that felt "completely competent to legislate in all religious
as in all secular affairs"; 58 but it proved incompatible with the con-
cept of a divine ruler. Despite significant efforts to assert the quasi-
divine quality of the emperor,59 the Byzantine government was,
according to our criteria, at best marginally theocratic.
Islam objects to the divinization of the ruler for reasons of its
own: Mohammad was Allah's prophet, not his son; and the caliph,
who inherited the prophet's authority, had no divine status. Al-
though he was in charge of important religious matters,80 he cannot
well be called a high priest either. Measuring the position of the
caliph by our criteria, we therefore, and in conformity with expert
opinion, consider it neither theocratic nor hierocratic.'
In China the ruler emerges in the light of history as the supreme
authority both in secular and religious matters. Whether the tradi-
tional designation, "Son of Heaven," reflects an earlier belief in the
sovereign's divinity, we do not know. The overlords of the Chou
empire and of the subsequent imperial dynasties, who all used this
appellation, were considered humans, yet they occupied a quasi-
theocratic position. Entrusted with the Mandate of Heaven, they
controlled the magic relations with the forces of nature by elaborate
sacrifices. In the great religious ceremonies the ruler and his central
and local officials assumed the leading roles, leaving only secondary
functions to the professional sacerdotalists and their aides. The
emperor was the chief performer in the most sacred of all ceremonies,
the sacrifice to Heaven; 61 and he was the chief performer also in
the sacrifices to Earth, for the prospering of the crop,62 for the
early summer rains,83 and for the national deities of Soil and Millet.64
Some of these rites were confined to the national capital. Others
were also enacted in the many regional and local subcenters of state
power by distinguished provincial, district, or community officials:
the great rain sacrifice,65 the ceremonial plowing,68 the sacrifices to
Confucius 67 and to the patron of agriculture,68 etc.ff
To sum up: in the Chinese state religion, the ruler and a hierarchy
of high officials fulfilled crucial priestly functions, although in their
/. See Arnold, 1924: 189 ff., 198 n.; ibid., 1941: 294. All this is true essentially for
the Sunnite sector of the Islamic world. In the Shi'ite sector the theocratic tendencies
occasionally became very strong. For instance, Shah Isma'il of the Safawid Dynasty
apparently "considered himself as God incarnate" (Minorsky, 1943: 12 n.).
g. Thus in the political order of traditional China religious ideas and practices
played a significant role, and certain of the latter were as comprehensive as they were
awe-inspiring. The outstanding European expert on Chinese religion, De Groot, calls
the great sacrifice to Heaven "perhaps the most impressive ceremony ever performed
on earth by man" (De Groot, 1918: 180).
96 A STATE STRONGER THAN SOCIETY
vast majority these officials and the emperor himself were primarily
occupied with secular matters. The government of traditional China
therefore presents a consistent — and unusual — variant of theocracy.
c. Agrarian Despotism Always Keeps the Dominant Religion
Integrated in Its Power System
Thus within the hydraulic world some countries were ruled quasi-
hierocratically by qualified priests who, however, no longer engaged
professionally in their vocation; and many were ruled theocratically,
or quasitheocratically, by divine or pontifical sovereigns. Of the re-
mainder some were borderline cases; and others were probably
neither hierocratic nor theocratic. But even among the latter the
dominant religion was unable to establish itself as an independent
church vis-a-vis the government. In one form or another, it became
integrated in the power system of the hydraulic regime.
In certain regions of pre-Conquest Mexico the political ruler was
originally also the supreme priest,69 and in Michoacan this pattern
persisted until the arrival of the Spaniards.70 In the territorial states
on the Lake of Mexico the two functions were manifestly separated
long before the conquest, but the king continued to fulfill certain
religious tasks, and the temples and their personnel were under his
authority. On occasion the sovereign, alone or together with his
top-ranking aides, might don priestly attire; 71 and he personally
performed certain sacrifices.72 Furthermore, and perhaps most im-
portant, the king and his top-ranking aides appointed the Great
Priests; 73 and temple land was apparently administered together
with government land.74
Should we for this reason call pre-Conquest Mexico quasitheo-
cratic? Perhaps. The Mexican constellation defies simple classifica-
tion, but this much is certain: The priests of the various temples
who assembled for ceremonial purposes had no independent nation-
wide organization of their own. Cooperating closely with the secular
leaders, whose offspring they educated and in whose armies they
served,75 they were no counterweight to, but an integral part of,
the despotic regime.
The borderline cases of early Achaemenian Persia and of By
zantine and Islamic society have already been touched upon. But
even when in these cases the government was only peripherally
theocratic, the dominant religion was everywhere firmly enmeshed
in the secular system of authority. The Achaemenian king, who in
secular matters ruled absolutely, in theory also had the final say in
religious matters. And not only in theory. The case of Artaxerxes II
CHAPTER 3, E gy
shows that the Achaemenian king could change the religious cult in
significant ways.78 The dominant priests, the magi, constituted a
privileged group,77 but they did not establish a national and auton-
omous Church.
Early Byzantium is among the very few hydraulic civilizations
that permitted the dominant religion to function as a Church. But
while this Church was well organized, it did not evolve into an
independent entity, as did the Roman branch after the collapse
of the Western half of the empire. During the early period of By-
zantine history — that is, from the 4th to the 7th century — the
"saintly," 78 if not divine, emperor followed Roman tradition which
held that the religion of his subjects was part of the jus publicum;
he consequently exerted "an almost unlimited control over the life
of the Church." 79
Under Islam, political and religious leadership was originally one,
and traces of this arrangement survived throughout the history of
the creed. The position of the Islamic sovereign (the caliphs and
sultans) underwent many transformations, but it never lost its
religious quality.80 Originally the caliphs directed the great com-
munal prayer. Within their jurisdictions, the provincial governors
led the ritual prayer, particularly on Fridays, and they also delivered
the sermon, the khutba. The caliphs appointed the official inter-
preter of the Sacred Law, the muftis The centers of Muslim wor-
ship, the mosques, were essentially administered by persons directly
dependent upon the sovereign, such as the kadis; and the religious
endowments, the waqfs, which provided the main support for the
mosques, were often, though not always, administered by the govern-
ment. Throughout the history of Islam the ruler remained the top-
ranking authority for the affairs of the mosque. "He interfered in
the administration and shaped it according to his will," and he
"could also interfere in the inner affairs of the mosques, perhaps
through his regular agencies." 82 All this did not make the caliphate
a theocracy, but it indicates a governmental authority strong enough
to prevent the establishment of an Islamic Church that was inde-
pendent of the state.
In India the relation between secular and religious authority
underwent considerable transformation, but certain basic features
persisted throughout and even after the close of the Hindu period.
Available evidence suggests that in the early days of Hindu history
the government depended less on priestly participation than it has
since the later part of the first millennium b.c.83 But whatever
changes have occurred in this respect, secular and religious authority
remained closely integrated.
98 A STATE STRONGER THAN SOCIETY
Were the Brahmins disinclined, or unable, to create an auton-
omous position similar to that of the Church in feudal Europe? Did
they live by gifts and government grants because they wanted to or
because they had no choice? Everything we know about the attitudes
of the Brahmins shows that they, like other priestly groups, preferred
a strong and secure position over one that was weak and insecure.
However, the Hindu sovereigns willed it otherwise. Like their
hydraulic fellow monarchs, they favored regulated and weak forms
of property for their subjects. They paid their secular aides in
money, consumable goods, and the usufruct of land ("villages"); and
they remunerated the representatives of the dominant religion in
exactly the same way. In India this was still the policy at the end
of the Hindu period, when an increase in private landownership
failed to consolidate proprietary power in any way comparable to
that of late feudal or postfeudal Europe.
To say this does not mean to deny the extraordinary role of
Brahminism — and of the Brahmins — in the governments of Hindu
and Muslim India. All four castes are said to have been made from
parts of Brahma's body, and the Brahmin caste from a particularly
noble part, the mouth.84 But the great Law Book ascribed to Manu
especially stresses the divinity of the king.80 It thus credits his rule
with a definitely theocratic quality.
Hindu government also had significant quasihierocratic features.
From Vedic times the king had had a priest attached to his person,
the purohita; 86 and this dignitary soon became his advisor in all
matters of importance.87 The Law Books, which were written by
Brahmins and accepted by the government as guides for action, re-
quire the king to have a purohita 88 "(who shall be) foremost in all
(transactions). Let him act according to his instructions." 89
A priest advised the king; and a priest aided him in administering
the priest-formulated laws. The Book of Manu insists that "a learned
Brahmana must carefully study them, and he must duly instruct his
pupils in them, but nobody else (shall do it)." 90 In doubtful cases
well-instructed Brahmins were to decide what was right,91 and in the
courts the priests, either with the king and his aides or alone, were
to act as judges.92
Well educated and politically influential, the priests had unique
opportunities for handling administrative tasks. The purohita might
become the king's top-ranking minister.93 In a similar way, priests
might be entrusted with all manner of fiscal tasks. Tnis was so
during the classical days of Hindu culture,94 and it continued to be
a major trend until the end of the Muslim period. Du Bois states
that "Brahmins become necessary even to the Mussulman princes
CHAPTER J, E 99
themselves, who cannot govern without their assistance. The Mo-
hamedan rulers generally make a Brahmin their secretary of state,
through whose hands all the state correspondence must pass. Brah-
mins also frequently fill the positions of secretaries and writers to
the governors of provinces and districts." 95
The English did little to change this age-old pattern. The Brah-
mins
occupy the highest and most lucrative posts in the different
administrative boards and Government offices, as well as in the
judicial courts of the various districts. In fact there is no branch
of public administration in which they have not made them-
selves indispensable. Thus it is nearly always Brahmins who
hold the posts of sub-collectors of revenue, writers, copyists,
translators, treasurers, book-keepers, etc. It is especially diffi-
cult to do without their assistance in all matters connected
with accounts, as they have a remarkable talent for arithmetic.
I have seen some men in the course of a few minutes work out,
to the last fraction, long and complicated calculations, which
would have taken the best accountants in Europe hours to get
through.06
During the Hindu period and after, many trained and qualified
priests indeed fulfilled important government functions. But except
for the purohita and perhaps certain others who temporarily acted
as judges, the priests became full-time officials. As in other hydraulic
civilizations, they preserved their religious quality, but they ceased
to be professional priests. In all probability, they did not constitute
the majority of all officials, for there already existed a numerous
"ruling" caste,97 the Kshatriya, who were specialists in administrative
and, particularly, military matters.
d. The Changing Position of the Dominant Priesthood in
Hydraulic Society
These observations protect us against assuming that, during an
early phase, hydraulic civilization was ruled by priests and that, later
on, it was dominated by a secular group, preferably warriors.
To repeat: hierocracy, the rule of priests who remained officiating
priests while they governed, was rare; and rule by trained priests was
far from being a general feature of early hydraulic civilizations.
Theocracy characterized many hydraulic civilizations, both late and
early; but it did not necessarily involve priest rule.
True, in the early days of Mesopotamia and of many (most?)
lOO A STATE STRONGER THAN SOCIETY
hydraulic areas of the Western hemisphere, the temples apparently
played a dominant role in the choice of sovereigns and officials; but
in several major hydraulic centers of the Old World this was not
the case. In China no conspicuous body of professional priests repre-
sented the dominant religion. In Pharaonic Egypt a professional
priesthood was not lacking; but in the Old Kingdom many important
religious functions were fulfilled by the ruler and certain ranking
officials. In the early days of Aryan India the government was run
by secular "warriors" (Kshatriyas). Only later and gradually did the
priests, directly or indirectly, participate in the government.
Nor can it be said that later and larger hydraulic societies were
generally ruled by military men. As will be explained more fully in
subsequent chapters, military officials and "the army" might indeed
prevail over the civil bureaucracy. But this development was by no
means confined to later and more complex hydraulic societies. More-
over, for obvious reasons, it was the exception rather than the rule,
since in an agromanagerial state the political organizer (the "pen")
tends to be more powerful than the military leader (the "sword").
F. THREE FUNCTIONAL ASPECTS, BUT A SINGLE
SYSTEM OF TOTAL POWER
But whatever the deficiencies of this assumption of a development
from priest rule to warrior rule, it has the merit of drawing attention
to the multiple functions of the hydraulic regime. Different from
the society of feudal Europe, in which the majority of all military
leaders (the feudal barons) were but loosely and conditionally linked
to their sovereigns, and in which the dominant religion was inde-
pendent of the secular government, the army of hydraulic society
was an integral part of the agromanagerial bureaucracy, and the
dominant religion was closely attached to the state. It was this
formidable concentration of vital functions which gave the hydraulic
government its genuinely despotic (total) power.
CHAPTER 4
<©>
espotic power— total and not benevolent
The despotic character of hydraulic government is not seriously
contested. The term "Oriental despotism," which is generally used
for the Old World variants of this phenomenon, connotes an ex-
tremely harsh form of absolutist power.
But those who admit the ruthlessness of Oriental despotism often
insist that regimes of this type were limited by institutional and moral
checks which made them bearable and at times even benevolent.
How bearable and how benevolent was hydraulic despotism? Ob-
viously this question can be answered only by a comparative and
reasoned examination of the pertinent facts.
A. TOTAL POWER
1. Absence of Effective Constitutional Checks
The existence of constitutional regulations does not necessarily in-
volve the existence of a constitutionally restricted government. All
governments that persist over time — and many others as well — have
a certain pattern (constitution). This pattern may be expressed in
written form. Under advanced cultural conditions, this is usually
done, and at times in an orderly collection, a code.
The development of a written constitution is by no means identical
with the development of a "constitutionally" restricted government.
Just as a law may be imposed by the government (lex data) or agreed
upon both by governmental authority and independent nongovern-
mental forces (lex rogata), so a constitution may also be imposed or
agreed upon. The term constitutiones originally referred to edicts,
rescripts, and mandates that were one-sidedly and autocratically
issued by the Roman emperors.
Even a highly systematized law code does not bind the autocratic
lawgivers by restrictions other than those inherent in all self-imposed
norms. The ruler who exercises complete administrative, managerial,
judicial, military, and fiscal authority may use his power to make
whatever laws he and his aides deem fit. Expediency and inertia
1U1
102 DESPOTIC POWER — TOTAL AND NOT BENEVOLENT
favor the perpetuation of most of these laws, but the absolutist
regime is free to alter its norms at any time; and the history of
hydraulic civilizations testifies to the periodic promulgation of new
laws and new codes. The "Collected Regulations" (hui yao) of im-
perial China,1 the Law Books (dharma shastra) of India,2 and the
administrative and judicial writings of the Byzantine and Islamic
East are all cases in point.
Having been imposed one-sidedly, constitutional regulations are
also changed one-sidedly. In China "all legislative, executive and
judicial powers belonged to him [the emperor]." 3 In Hindu India
"constitutionally the king was in a position to accept or repudiate
the laws accepted by his predecessor." * In Byzantium "there was no
organ in the state that had a right to control him [the emperor]."
Or, more specifically: "For his legislative and administrative acts,
the monarch was responsible to none, except to Heaven." s
In Islamic society the caliph, like all other believers, was expected
to submit to the Sacred Law,6 and generally he was quite ready to
uphold it as part of the dominant religious order. But he asserted
his power whenever he thought it desirable by establishing (adminis-
trative) secular courts and by directing them through special decrees
(qdnun or siyasa).7 And the religious judges, the kadis, were eager
to support a government that appointed and deposed them at will.a
Thus the theoretical absence of a legislature modified the appear-
ance but not the substance of Islamic absolutism. "The Caliphate
. . . was a despotism which placed unrestricted power in the hands
of the ruler." 8
In these and other comparable instances the regime represents a
definite structural and operational pattern, a "constitution." But
this pattern is not agreed upon. It is given from above, and the rulers
of hydraulic society create, maintain, and modify it, not as the
controlled agents of society but as its masters.
2. Absence of Effective Societal Checks
a. No Independent Centers of Authority Capable of Check-
ing the Power of the Hydraulic Regime
Of course, the absence of formal constitutional checks does not
necessarily imply the absence of societal forces whose interests and
a. Schacht, 1941: 677. The Sacred Law, the Islamic law proper, was in time confined
essentially to personal matters, such as marriage, family, and inheritance, while secular
law dealt primarily with criminal cases, taxation, and land problems. This was so
not only under the Arab caliphs, but also under the Turkish sultans.
CHAPTER 4, A 103
intentions the government must respect. In most countries of post-
feudal Europe the absolutist regimes were restricted not so much
by official constitutions as by the actual strength of the landed
nobility, the Church, and the towns. In absolutist Europe all these
nongovernmental forces were politically organized and articulate.
They thus differed profoundly from the representatives of landed
property, religion, or urban professions in hydraulic society.
Some of these groups were poorly developed in the Orient, and
none of them congealed into political bodies capable of restricting
the hydraulic regime. The Indian scholar, K. V. Rangaswami, cor-
rectly describes the situation when, in his discussion of Hindu ab-
solutism, he defines genuine absolutism as "a form of government in
which all the powers must be vested in the hands of the Ruler, there
being no other concurrent and independent authority, habitually
obeyed by the people as much as he is obeyed, and which lawfully
resist him or call him to account." 9
b. The So-called Right of Rebellion
The lack of lawful means for resisting the government is indeed a
significant feature of despotism. When such means are not available,
discontented and desperate men have time and again taken up arms
against their government, and under extreme conditions they have
succeeded in overthrowing it altogether. Subsequently the new rul-
ers justified their procedure by juxtaposing the worthiness of their
cause to the un worthiness of the former regime; and the historians
and philosophers have in the same manner explained periodic dy-
nastic changes. It is from events and ideas of this kind that the so-
called right of rebellion has been derived.
The term "right of rebellion" is unfortunate in that it confuses a
legal and a moral issue. The official discussions on the rise and fall
of dynastic power were presented as warnings against rebellious ac-
tion rather than as guides for it; and they were certainly not incorpo-
rated into any official constitutional regulations or laws. The right
of rebellion could be exercised only when the existing laws were
violated and at the risk of total destruction for whoever asserted it.
Traces of the so-called right of rebellion can be found in virtu-
ally all hydraulic societies. Pueblo folklore proudly relates successful
action against unworthy caciques,10 and revolutions in Bali have
been so justified.11 Hindu and Muslim rulers have been similarly
warned — and similarly challenged.12 The fact that in China the right
of rebellion was formulated in the Confucian classics did as little
to check total power 18 as does the presence in the USSR of Marx'
104 DESPOTIC POWER TOTAL AND NOT BENEVOLENT
and Lenin's writings, which postulate revolutionary action against
oppression.
c. Election of the Despot — No Remedy
Nor does the regime become less despotic because the ruler attains
his position through election rather than through inheritance. The
transfer of title and authority to a close relative of the deceased sov-
ereign, preferably to the oldest son, favors political stability, while
election favors gifted leadership. The first principle prevails among
the indigenous rulers of hydraulic societies, the second among pas-
toral or other peoples who, as conquerors of such societies, fre-
quently perpetuated their original patterns of succession.14
The Byzantine custom of determining the emperor through elec-
tion goes back to republican Rome. It suited the conditions of the
early empire, which, being largely controlled by military officials,
chose its sovereigns more often through "the army" 15 than through
the top-ranking body of civil officials. When, from Diocletian on, the
Senate took a more prominent part in the election of the emperor,
the political center of gravity shifted from the military to the civil
branch of the officialdom.6 Election was not the best method by
which to establish a new emperor, but wrapped in the cloak of tra-
dition and legitimacy it proved definitely compatible with the re-
quirements of bureaucratic absolutism.0 And the frequent changes
in the person of the supreme leader deprived neither his position
nor the bureaucratic hierarchy, which he headed, of its despotic char-
acter.
In ancient Mexico and in most Chinese dynasties of conquest the
new ruler was elected from members of the ruling kin group. The
procedure combined the principle of inheritance with the principle
of limited choice; and, as in the case of Byzantium, those who made
the choice were top-ranking members of the political hierarchy. This
arrangement increased the political opportunities among the masters
of the apparatus, but it did not increase the authority of the non-
governmental forces of society.
Two nonhydraulic parallels may aid in dispelling the misconcep-
tion that despotic power is democratized by an elective system of
succession. The regime of Chingis Khan, which was perpetuated
b. The Byzantine Senate was nothing but "the rallying-point of the administrative
aristocracy" (Diehl, 1936: 729).
c. Dynastic forms of government crystallized only after the Byzantine state had
lost its hydraulic provinces.
CHAPTER 4, A IO5
through limited election, remains one of the most terrifying exam-
ples of total power. And the transfer of leadership from one member
of the Bolshevik Politburo to another makes the Soviet government
temporarily less stable but certainly not more democratic.
Mommsen called the state of Eastern Rome "an autocracy tem-
pered by a revolution which is legally recognized as permanent." 16
Bury translates Mommsen's unwieldy formulation as "an autocracy
tempered by the legal right of revolution."17 Both phrasings are
problematic because they imply that the subjects were legally en-
titled to replace one emperor by another. Actually no such right
existed. Diehl recognizes this by speaking of "an autocracy tempered
by revolution and assassination"; 18 and Bury admits that "there was
no formal process of deposing a sovran." But he adds, "the members
of the community had the means of dethroning him, if the govern-
ment failed to give satisfaction, by proclaiming a new emperor."19
This was indeed the pattern established by the military officials of
Eastern Rome; and congruent with it, usurpation was considered
legitimate if and when it was successful. That is, rebellion becomes
legal — post festum. Says Bury: "If he [the pretender] had not a suffi-
cient following to render the proclamation effective and was sup-
pressed, he was treated as a rebel." 20
Thus, in Byzantium as in other states of the hydraulic world, any-
one might try to usurp power; and the elective nature of sovereignty
combined with the temporary dominance of military leadership in-
spired frequent attempts of this kind. But no law protected such
actions while they were being undertaken. In Byzantium persons at-
tacking the existing government were punished with barbarous bru-
tality.21 In China persons caught while trying to exercise the right of
rebellion were executed. Under the last three dynasties they were cut
to pieces.22
If armed conflict, rebellion, and the assassination of weak rulers
do not make Oriental despotism more democratic, do they not at
least give the populace some relief from oppression? The argument
has less validity than may appear at first glance. Such diversions
rarely reduce in any decisive way the traditional administrative and
judicial pressures; and the inclination to assert supreme leadership
through open violence is more than likely to intensify the tendency
to brutality among those in power. Furthermore, the devastations of
any major civil war generally lay increased economic burdens on the
commoners. The frequent occurrence of violence within the ruling
circles, far from tempering despotism, tends to make it more oppres-
sive.
106 DESPOTIC POWER — TOTAL AND NOT BENEVOLENT
d. Intragovernmental Influences: Absolutism and Autocracy
But are there perhaps forces inside the government that mitigate
the ruthlessness of agromanagerial despotism? This question focuses
attention on the relation between absolutism and autocracy. Absolu-
tism and autocracy are not identical, but they interlock closely. A
government is absolutist when its rule is not effectively checked by
nongovernmental forces. The ruler of an absolutist regime is an auto-
crat when his decisions are not effectively checked by intragovern-
mental forces.
The absolutist regimes of hydraulic society are usually d headed by
a single individual in whose person is concentrated all the power
over major decisions. Why is this so? Do the great water works, which
characterize the core areas of the hydraulic world and which indeed
require centralized direction, necessitate autocratic leadership? After
all, controlled (democratic or aristocratic) governments also initiate
and maintain huge public enterprises. They muster large and disci-
plined armies and/or fleets; and they operate thus, for substantial
periods of time, without developing autocratic patterns of rulership.
Manifestly, the rise of autocratic power depends on more than the
existence of large state enterprises. In all hydraulic societies proper
such enterprises play a considerable role; and there, as well as in the
institutional margin, we always find disciplined armies and almost
always, also, comprehensive organizations of communication and in-
telligence. But there is no technical reason why these various enter-
prises could not be headed by several leading officials. This is indeed
the case in controlled governments, whose department chiefs are
carefully separated from, and balanced against, one another.
However, despotic states lack appropriate mechanics of outside
control and internal balance. And under such conditions there de-
velops what may be called a cumulative tendency of unchecked power.
This tendency could be countered if all major subsections of author-
ity were more or less equally powerful. It could be countered if the
chiefs of the public works, of the army, of the intelligence service,
and of the revenue system were more or less equally strong in terms
of organizational, communicational, and coercive power. In such a
case, the absolutist regime might be headed by a balanced oligarchy,
a "politburo," whose members would actually, and more or less
equally, participate in the exercise of supreme authority. However,
the organizational, communicational, and coercive power of the
major sectors of any government is rarely, if ever, so balanced; and
under absolutist conditions the holder of the strongest position, ben-
d. For a few temporary exceptions, like early India, see below, Chap. 8.
CHAPTER 4, A 107
efiting from the cumulative tendency of unchecked power, tends to
expand his authority through alliances, maneuvers, and ruthless
schemes until, having conquered all other centers of supreme deci-
sion, he alone prevails.
The point at which the growth of government functions precludes
effective outside control differs in different institutional configura-
tions. But it may safely be said that whenever this critical point is
passed, the cumulative strength of superior power tends to result in
a single autocratic center of organization and decision making.
The crucial importance of this center is not negated by the fact
that the supreme power-holder may delegate the handling of his af-
fairs to a top-ranking assistant, a vizier, chancellor, or prime minister.
Nor is it negated by the fact that he and/or his aide may lean heav-
ily for advice and speedy action on selected groups of strategically
placed and carefully tested officials. The governmental apparatus as
a whole does not cease to be absolutist because the actual center of
decision making temporarily, and often in a veiled manner, shifts to
persons or groups below the ruler.
The sovereign of an agrobureaucratic state may be completely un-
der the influence of his courtiers or administrators; but such influ-
ence differs qualitatively from the institutional checks of balanced
power. In the long run the head of a controlled government must
adjust to the effective nongovernmental forces of society, while the
head of an absolutist regime is not similarly restricted. Simple self-
interest urges any intelligent despot to listen to experienced persons.
Councillors have existed in most agromanagerial civilizations, and
not infrequently councils were a standard feature of government. But
the ruler was under no compulsion to accept their suggestions.23
Whether the sovereign was his own chief executive, whether he
delegated many of his functions to a vizier, or whether he or his
vizier largely followed the advice of official and nonofficial advisors
depended, in addition to custom and circumstance, on the personali-
ties of the ruler and his aides. But despite significant bureaucratic
attempts to subordinate the absolutist sovereign to the control of his
officialdom, the ruler could always rule, if he was determined to do
so. The great monarchs of the Oriental world were almost without
exception "self-rulers" — autocrats.
3. Laws of Nature and Patterns of Culture — No
Effective Checks Either
Serious observers do not generally contest these facts. However, not
a few among them seek to minimize their significance by reference
108 DESPOTIC POWER — TOTAL AND NOT BENEVOLENT
to mores and beliefs, which are assumed to restrict even the most
tyrannical regime.
Mores and beliefs do indeed play a role; and so, for that matter,
do the laws of nature. However, the potential victims of despotic
power seem to find little consolation in either fact. They know that
their masters' behavior, like their own, is affected by the laws of na-
ture and by more or less firmly established cultural circumstances.
But they know also that, nevertheless and in the last analysis, their
fate will be determined by the will of those who wield total power.
The mechanics of administration and coercion depend on man's
insight into the laws of nature and his ability to use them. A despotic
regime will proceed in one way in the neolithic period, in another
in the iron age, and in still another in our own time. But in each
case the ruling group asserts its total superiority under the then
actual natural conditions and by means of the then available tech-
nology. The victim of a crude form of despotism does not consider
his persecutors less powerful because, under more advanced technical
conditions, they may catch and destroy him by different methods
or with greater speed.
Nor does he doubt their absolute superiority because they act in
conformity with prevailing cultural patterns. Such patterns always
shape the manner in which the ruler (and his subjects) act; and
occasionally they mitigate or prolong governmental procedures at
particular stages. But they do not prevent the government from
ultimately achieving its goal. The fact that in many countries persons
under sentence of death are normally not executed in certain
seasons or on certain days 2* does not mean that they escape their
doom. And the fact that a dominant religion praises acts of mercy
does not mean that it refrains from invoking measures of extreme
harshness.
The potential victim of despotic persecution knows full well that
the natural and cultural settings, whatever temporary respites they
may provide, do not prevent his final destruction. The despotic
ruler's power over his subjects is no less total because it is limited
by factors that mold human life in every type of society.
B. THE BEGGARS' DEMOCRACY
The power of hydraulic despotism is unchecked ("total"), but it
does not operate everywhere. The life of most individuals is far
from being completely controlled by the state; and there are many
villages and other corporate units that are not totally controlled
either.
CHAPTER 4, B 10g
What keeps despotic power from asserting its authority in all
spheres of life? Modifying a key formula of classical economics, we
may say that the representatives of the hydraulic regime act (or
refrain from acting) in response to the law of diminishing adminis-
trative returns.
1. The Managerial Variant of the Law of
Changing Administrative Returns
The law of diminishing administrative returns is one aspect of what
may be called the law of changing administrative returns.1 Varying
efforts produce varying results not only in a property-based business
economy ° but also in governmental enterprise. This fact affects
decisively both the political economy and the range of state control
in hydraulic society.
a. Hydraulic Agriculture: the Law of Increasing
Administrative Returns
In a landscape characterized by full aridity permanent agriculture
becomes possible only if and when coordinated human action trans-
fers a plentiful and accessible water supply from its original loca-
tion to a potentially fertile soil. When this is done, government-led
hydraulic enterprise is identical with the creation of agricultural
life. This first and crucial moment may therefore be designated as
the "administrative creation point."
Having access to sufficient arable land and irrigation water, the
hydraulic pioneer society tends to establish statelike forms of public
control. Now economic budgeting becomes one-sided and planning
bold. New projects are undertaken on an increasingly large scale,
and if necessary without concessions to the commoners. The men
whom the government mobilized for corvee service may see no
reason for a further expansion of the hydraulic system; but the
directing group, confident of further advantage, goes ahead never-
theless. Intelligently carried out, the new enterprises may involve a
relatively small additional expense, but they may yield a con-
spicuously swelling return. Such an encouraging discrepancy ob-
viously provides a great stimulus for further governmental action.
b. The Laiu of Balanced Administrative Returns
The expansion of government-directed hydraulic enterprise usually
slows down when administrative costs approach administrative
a. Significantly, the law of diminishing returns has so far been studied primarily in
connection with private economy (see Clark, 1937: 145 ff.).
HO DESPOTIC POWER — TOTAL AND NOT BENEVOLENT
benefits. The upward movement has then reached "Saturation Point
'A* (Ascent)." Beyond this point further expansion may yield addi-
tional rewards more or less in proportion to additional administra-
tive effort; but when the major potentials of water supply, soil, and
location are exhausted, the curve reaches "Saturation point 'D'
(Descent)." The zone between Points "A" and "D" is characterized
by what may be called the law of balanced administrative returns.
c. The Law of Diminishing Administrative Returns
Whether Saturation Points "A" and "D" are close together or far
apart, or whether they coincide, any move beyond this zone of
balanced returns carries man's action into an area of discouraging
discrepancy. Here similar, and even increased, administrative en-
deavors cost more than they yield. It is under these conditions that
we observe the workings of the law of diminishing administrative
returns. The downward movement is completed when additional
outlay yields no additional reward whatsoever. We have then
reached the absolute administrative frustration point.
d. Ideal Curve and Reality of Changing Returns
This ideal curve does not describe the development of any specific
government-directed system of water works in any specific hydraulic
society. It indicates in a schematic way the critical points through
which any hydraulic enterprise passes, if it moves steadily through
all zones of growing and shrinking returns.
Rarely, if ever, do the actual and the ideal curves coincide.
Geology, meteorology, potamology, and historical circumstance make
for countless variations. Progress toward saturation and beyond may
be interrupted by longer or shorter countermovements. But every
section of the curve reflects a genuine trend; and the entire curve
combines these trends to indicate all possible major phases of
creation and frustration in hydraulic enterprise.
e. Nonhydraulic Spheres of Political Economy
In the sphere of agricultural production itself, coordinated and
government-directed action yields increasing administrative returns
only under primitive and special conditions. It is only in techno-
logically crude hydraulic societies that mass labor on "public" fields
prevails. And even in these societies the government does not try
to assume managerial direction over the fields which have been set
aside for the support of the individual farmer. In a technically more
CHAPTER 4, B 111
advanced setting, the administrative creation point and the adminis-
trative frustration point tend to coincide. For there the hydraulic
regime prefers to refrain altogether from agricultural production,
which from the standpoint of administrative returns is more reason-
ably handled by many small individual farming units.
Of course, political needs take precedence over economic consider-
ations. The great agromanagerial enterprises of communication and
defense are cases in point, as are certain government-run workshops
(arsenals, shipyards). However, the hydraulic regime's reluctance to
assume direct control over the finishing industries derives from the
realization that in this field state management would involve deficits
rather than gains. In hydraulic as well as in other agrarian societies
the government is therefore satisfied to leave the bulk of all handi-
craft to small individual producers.
2. The Power Variant of the Law of Changing
Administrative Returns
a. Imperative and Worth-while Efforts
It is easy to recognize the workings of the law of changing adminis-
trative returns also in the sphere of political power. The efforts of the
hydraulic regime to maintain uncontested military and police con-
trol over the population prove increasingly rewarding until all
independent centers of coercion are destroyed. The expenses incurred
in supporting speedy communications and intelligence follow a
similar pattern; and the expansion of fiscal and judicial action ap-
pears reasonable as long as it satisfies the rulers' desire for uncon-
tested political and social hegemony.
Some of these operations are imperative, others at least worth
while. But carried beyond Saturation Point "D", they all become
problematic. The discouraging discrepancy between continued en-
deavor and decreasing political rewards makes the government
reluctant to use its apparatus much below this point.
b. The Forbidding Cost of Total Social Control in a
Semimanagerial Society
The developed industrial apparatus state of the USSR has crushed
all independent nationwide organizations (military, political, pro-
prietary, religious); and its total managerial economy permits the
establishment of innumerable bureaucratic bases for controlling all
secondary (local) professional groupings and even the thought and
behavior of individuals. The hydraulic apparatus state does not
112 DESPOTIC POWER — TOTAL AND NOT BENEVOLENT
have equal facilities. It is strong enough to prevent the growth of
effective primary organizations; and in doing so, it brings about that
one-sided concentration of power which distinguishes it from the
ancient and medieval agrarian societies of the West. But being only
semimanagerial, it lacks the ubiquitous bases which enable the men
of the apparatus to extend their total control over secondary organi-
zations and individual subjects. In the USSR such total control was
initiated through the nationalization of agriculture (the "collectiviza-
tion" of the villages); and it was accomplished through the pulveri-
zation of all nongovernmental human relations. Hydraulic society
never made the first step, and it therefore never laid the foundations
for the second.
To be sure, the notion of a ubiquitous control also attracted the
master minds of hydraulic despotism. Garcilaso de la Vega, a scion
of native royalty, claimed that under Inca rule special officials went
from house to house to make sure that everybody was kept busy.
Idlers were punished by blows on the arms and legs "and other
penalties prescribed by the law." 2 The great Chinese "Utopia" of
bureaucratic government, the Chou Li, lists several officials who,
in a well-managed state, should regulate the people's life in village
and town.
There is no reason to doubt that the Incas wanted their subjects
to work as much as possible; but any effective inspection of the
commoners' domestic life would have required an army of officials,
which would have eaten up a great part of the public revenue with-
out providing a compensatory increase in income. It is therefore hard
to believe that the "laws" mentioned by Garcilaso went far beyond
a general — and therefore not too costly — supervision. The same may
be said for the classic book of Chinese bureaucracy. All educated
Chinese officials studied the Chou Li; but once in office, they soon
learned to distinguish between the sweet dream of total social con-
trol and the sober administrative reality. Except for some short-lived
attempts at extreme interference, they were content to maintain firm
control over the strategically important spheres of their society.
c. Total Social Control Not Necessary for the Perpetuation
of Agromanagerial Despotism
To say that the law of diminishing administrative returns dis-
courages the hydraulic state from attempting to control individuals
and secondary organizations totally is only another way of saying
that the government feels no fundamental need to do so. If it were
otherwise — that is, if total control were imperative for the perpetua-
CHAPTER 4, B 113
tion of the despotic regime — the rulers might have to spend all
their income to be safe. Obviously, such a power system would be
unworkable.
Historical experience shows that during long periods of "peace and
order" the hydraulic rulers can maintain themselves without resort-
ing to excessively costly measures. It also shows that under "normal"
conditions they need not make severe material sacrifices. Except in
times of unrest, they are adequately protected by their wide-flung
network of intelligence and coercion, which successfully blocks the
rise of independent nationwide primary organizations and prevents
discontented individuals or secondary organizations from gaining
prominence.
The political crises that develop periodically may be caused in
part by the dissatisfaction of such individuals and organizations.8
But serious unrest, whatever its origin, soon assumes a military form,
and it is combated by outright military measures. Responding to
the law of diminishing administrative returns, the masters of the
agrarian apparatus state run the risk of occasional uprisings and do
what their modern industrial successors do not have to do: they
grant a certain amount of freedom to most individuals and to certain
secondary organizations.
3. Sectors of Individual Freedom in
Hydraulic Society
a. Limitations of Managerial Control
The duration of the state corvee determines the period during
which a member of hydraulic society is deprived of his freedom of
action. The corvee may have many objectives, but it must allow
the mass of the laborers — the peasants — sufficient time to attend
to their own economic affairs. Of course, even in the villages the
peasants may have to submit to a policy of economic planning, but
at most this policy involves only a few major tasks, such as plowing,
sowing, harvesting, and perhaps the choice of the main crop. Often
it does not go this far; and at times it may be altogether absent.
Under conditions of advanced technology the corvee also tends
to change and shrink. Work on the public fields may be replaced
by a tax; and larger or smaller segments of the nonagricultural corvee
may be similarly commuted.
But whatever the character of the rural communities and whatever
the duration of the public labor service may be, there are definite
and at times considerable periods in the peasant's life during which
114 DESPOTIC POWER — TOTAL AND NOT BENEVOLENT
he proceeds at his own discretion. This is still more true for the
nonagrarian commoners. Artisans and traders who, in a differentiated
societal setting, pursue their occupations professionally and pri-
vately * may become more valuable as taxpayers than as corvee
laborers. Their freedom of movement will increase correspondingly.
Marx speaks of the "general slavery" of the Orient. According to
him, this type of slavery, which is inherent in man's attachment
to the hydraulic commonwealth and state,5 differs essentially from
Western slavery and serfdom.6 The merit of Marx' formula lies in
the problem it raises rather than in the answer it gives. A person
commandeered to toil for an "Asiatic" state is a slave of the state as
long as he is so occupied. He is perfectly aware of the lack of free-
dom, which this condition involves, and he is equally aware of the
pleasure of working for himself. Compared with the total state
slavery of the total managerial industrial society, the partial state
slavery of the partial managerial hydraulic society makes indeed
considerable concessions to human freedom.
b. Limitations of Thought Control
A comparable tendency to make concessions arises also in the
sphere of thought control. To appreciate fully what this means, we
must understand the enormous stress that the masters of the hydrau-
lic state place on the society's dominant ideas. The close coordina-
tion of secular and religious authority makes it easy to apply this
stress to both the higher and the lower strata of society. The sons
of the dominant elite are generally educated by representatives of
the dominant creed; and the whole population is in continued and
government-promoted contact with the state-attached temples and
their priesthoods.
Education usually is a long process, and its influence is profound.
In India the young Brahmin who prepared himself for priestly
office had to study one, two, or all three Vedas, applying himself to
each one of them for twelve long years. And the members of the
"protecting" Kshatriya caste, and even those of the next lower caste,
the Vaisya, were also advised to study the Sacred Books.6 In China
"learning" — the study of the canonical (classical) writings — was al-
ready considered a basic prerequisite for administrative office in
Confucius' time.7 Increasing systematization led to the holding of
b. Marx assumed that from the European point of view, in this general Asiatic
slavery, the laborer seems to be a natural condition of production for a third person
or a community, as under [private-property-based] slavery and serfdom, but that
actually "this is not the case" (Marx, 1939: 395).
CHAPTER 4, B 115
elaborate and graded examinations, which fostered perpetual ideo-
logical alertness in all energetic and ambitious young, and in many
middle-aged and even elderly, members of the ruling class.
But the same societal forces that led to the systematic perpetua-
tion of the dominant ideas also encouraged a variety of secondary
religions. Many simple hydraulic civilizations tolerated independ-
ent diviners and sorcerers,8 whose artisan-like small-scale activities
modestly supplemented the coordinated operations of the leading
tribal or national creed. Under more complex conditions, ideo-
logical divergence tended to increase. Often the subject of a hydraulic
state might adhere to a secondary religion without endangering his
life. Non-Brahministic creeds, such as Jainism or Buddhism, are
documented for India from the first millennium b.c. Buddhism per-
sisted in traditional China, despite temporary persecutions, for al-
most two thousand years. And the Islamic Near East, India, and
Central Asia were similarly indulgent.
In the ideological as in the managerial sphere, the policies of the
agrarian apparatus state contrast strikingly with policies of the
modern industrial apparatus states, which, while feigning respect
for traditional ("national") culture and religion, spread the Marxist-
Leninist doctrine with the avowed aim of eventually annihilating
all other ideologies. Again, the difference between their policies is
not due to any innate tolerance on the part of the agrobureaucratic
rulers, whose insistence on the unique position of the dominant
religion is always uncompromising and frequently ruthless. But the
law of diminishing administrative returns places an exorbitant price
on the attempt to maintain total ideological control in a differ-
entiated semimanagerial society. And here, as in the operational
sector, experience shows that the absolutist regime can perpetuate
itself without making so costly an effort.
4. Groups Enjoying Varying Degrees of Autonomy
Experience shows still more. It assures the hydraulic rulers that
they may — for the same reasons — permit some autonomy not only
to their individual subjects but to certain secondary groups as well.
In referring to heterodox creeds, we are aware that their adherents
are usually permitted to establish congregations, which support
either individual priests or larger or smaller priesthoods. Since the
early days of written history, the artisans and traders of hydraulic
civilizations have formed professional organizations (guilds). More
ancient still are the village communities, which have probably existed
as long as hydraulic civilization itself. Kin groups are institutionally
Il6 DESPOTIC POWER — TOTAL AND NOT BENEVOLENT
older than agriculture; and like the village community, they are
present everywhere in the hydraulic world.
These types of associations differ greatly in distribution, composi-
tion, quality, and purpose. But they have one thing in common. All
of them are tolerated by the despotic regime. Many supervisory
measures notwithstanding, they are not subjected to total control.
a. Less Independence than Frequently Assumed
Romantic observers have taken the absence of such control as
evidence for the existence of genuine democratic institutions in the
lower echelons of hydraulic society. In this form, the claim cannot
be accepted. Throughout the hydraulic world, government authority
and family authority are interlinked; and measures of political con-
trol affect the majority of all villages, guilds, and secondary religious
organizations.
Parallels can be found in other agrarian societies for most of these
restrictive trends. (The free guilds of feudal Europe are as ex-
ceptional as they are significant.) This, however, is not the issue
here. What we are concerned with is whether, in contrast to corre-
sponding developments in other despotic states — and also in contrast
to restrictive developments in other agrarian civilizations — the sec-
ondary organizations of hydraulic society were genuinely autono-
mous. The answer to the question is "No."
i. THE FAMILY
The family of traditional China has often been said to be the
institution that gave Chinese society its peculiar character and
strength. This thesis is correct insofar as it stresses the family as a
basic component of society; but it is misleading insofar as it implies
that the family determined the quality and power of the institutional
setting of which it was a part.
The authority of the Chinese pater familias was much stronger
than intrafamilial leadership required; e and he owed his extraor-
dinary power essentially to the backing of the despotic state. Dis-
obedience to his orders was punished by the government.9 On the
other hand, the local officials could have him beaten and imprisoned,
if he was unable to keep the members of his family from violating
the law.10 Acting as a liturgical (semi-official) policeman of his kin
group, he can scarcely be considered the autonomous leader of an
autonomous unit.
c. For the nongovernmental roots of paternal authority in the Chinese family see
Wittfogel, 1935: 49; ibid., 1936: 506 ff.
CHAPTER 4, B liy
The Babylonian father, who could place his wife, son, or daughter
in the service of a third person for several years,11 also owed his
power to the government which backed him up in his decision.
Whether he was legally responsible for the behavior of the family
members is not clear.
The patria potestas of ancient Egypt has been compared with that
of Rome. The strongly militarized society of republican Rome did
indeed encourage the development of highly authoritarian family
relations; but the Egyptian father seems to have had still greater
power than his Roman counterpart.*
In the Islamic world, respect for the parents is prescribed by the
Sacred Law; 12 and the degree to which paternal authority operated,
particularly in the villages, may be judged from the fact that in
such countries as Syria the father customarily was the master over his
family until his death.13
The Law Books of India give the father an almost kinglike power
over members of his kin group.14 Despite several restrictions,16 his
authority over his wife and children seems to have been extremely
great/
Evidently the father's power varied notably in different hydraulic
civilizations. But almost everywhere the government was inclined
to raise it above the level suggested by his leadership functions in
the family.
ii. THE VILLAGE
Generally the villages of hydraulic civilizations are under the
jurisdiction of headmen who are either government-appointed or
elected by their fellow villagers. Appointment seems to be frequent
in the regulated rural communities of compactly hydraulic civiliza-
tions, whereas free choice is more apt to be permitted in less
compactly hydraulic societies. In Inca Peru the local officials down
to the lowest functionary — the head of ten families — was appointed.18
In pre-Conquest Mexico, too, the village land was communally
regulated. But its agrarian economy was much less bureaucratized
d. Dr. Taubenschlag's assertion that the Egyptian father's right to sell his child has a
Roman counterpart is documented only for "the fourth century" (Taubenschlag, 1944:
103 ff.).
e. Jolly, 1896: 78. At the beginning of the 19th century, Dubois (1943: 307 ff.) found
the authority of the Brahmins enormous, whereas paternal authority was weak. The
author lived in India from 1792 to 1823. Assuming that he observed the phenomenon
correctly, we are at a loss to explain it. Was it, at least in part, due to the turmoil
of the time?
Il8 DESPOTIC POWER — TOTAL AND NOT BENEVOLENT
than that of the Inca empire. The heads of the Mexican local ad-
ministrative units, the calpulli, were elected.17
However, this correlation does not prevail generally, perhaps be-
cause appointment is only one among several ways of controlling a
local functionary. Almost everywhere the hydraulic government
holds the headman responsible for the obligations of his co-villagers.
It thus places him in a position of state dependency. Where land is
communally held and where taxes are communally paid, the village
headman is likely to wield considerable power. Assisted by a scribe
and one or several policemen, he may become something of a local
despot.
The inscriptions of the early Near East show the regional officials
actively concerned with plowing and the collection of the reve-
nue; 1S but we are unable to get a clear picture of how the village
functionaries fitted into the administrative nexus.19 As in other
spheres of life, the Persians and their Hellenistic and Roman succes-
sors may well have perpetuated an earlier village pattern. In
Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt the leading village official, the scribe,
assisted by the elders, executed his government-imposed tasks.20
These men, no matter whether they were appointed 21 or elected
like the elders,22 were all "directly dependent on the central govern-
ment . . . they all especially obeyed the strategos of the district." 23
The data for Roman Syria seem to suggest considerable popular
participation in village affairs,24 whereas the Egyptian village officials
probably acted in a very authoritarian manner. But this divergence
must not make us overlook the basic similarities that existed through-
out the ancient Near East in village organization and government
dependency.25 In Hellenistic times,26 as previously, the "royal"
villagers were attached to the land they cultivated.27 It therefore
seems safe to conclude that in the pre-Roman as well as in the Roman
period the peasants of Syria and Asia Minor did not administer their
villages autonomously.
In Arab Egypt, as in Byzantine Egypt,28 the village administration
was in the hands of a headman and the elders. Under the Arabs
the headman, who possibly was nominated by the peasants and con-
firmed by the government,29 seems to have apportioned and collected
the tax.30 He designated the corvee laborers and exercised police and
judicial functions.81
In the Arab provinces of the Turkish Near East the village head-
man (sheikh) assisted the official and semi-official representatives of
the government in allocating the tax.32 He "policed the fellahs who
cultivated the lands under his charge, and the principal seyh acted
as magistrate and arbitrator, with authority not only over the culti-
CHAPTER 4, B lig
vators but over all the inhabitants." 3S Controlling "his" peasants in
an arbitrary way and being in turn controlled with equal severity by
the state bureaucracy,84 he certainly was not the representative of a
free rural village community.
In India the village headman may have been elected originally; s5
but from the time of the later Law Books on — that is, from the end
of the first millennium B.C. — his appointment is documented.36 As
the king's representative in the villages, who "collected taxes for
him" 87 and who also fulfilled policing and judicial functions,88 the
headman held a position of authority not dissimilar to that enjoyed
by his Near Eastern counterpart. Muslim rule did not fundamentally
change this administratively convenient arrangement, which in fact
persisted in the majority of all Indian villages up to modern times.89
In China the regulated village yielded to a property-based pattern
more than two thousand years ago. The duties of the village officials
shrank correspondingly, but they did not disappear altogether. At
the close of the imperial period most sizable villages had at least two
functionaries, a headman, chuang chang, and a local constable, t i fang
or ti pao.40 The headman, who was usually chosen by the villagers,
executed the directing, and the constable, who usually was govern-
ment appointed/ the coercive, functions of the village government.
They cooperated in their official tasks: the collection of taxes and
materials for public constructions, the organizing and directing of
corvee services ("government transportation . . . work on river-
banks, patrols for the Imperial roads" etc.),41 and the making of
intelligence reports.42
All these activities linked the headman to the central government,
although he was not part of its bureaucracy." The villagers found it
hard to bring a complaint against him, even if their case was good,
for he monopolized communication with the district magistracy.43
The constable was controlled by the county officials. They could
/. According to Smith (1899: 227). the candidates for this position were "not formally
chosen, nor formally deposed." Instead they used to "drop into their places" as the
result of what Smith calls "a kind of natural selection."
It would probably be better to speak of an informal election based on an under-
standing between all family heads of some standing. Dr. K. C. Hsiao, who has almost
completed his comprehensive study, Rural China, Imperial Control in the Nineteenth
Century, ascribes "a certain amount of informal local influence on village leader-
ship," especially that of "wealthy or gentry families." But he finds it impossible to
give quantitative data about "the proportion of government-appointed village head-
men (pao-chang, chia-chang, etc.; and later, chuang-chang, ti-pao, ti-fang, etc.)." He
adds: "The official scheme called for universal institution of such headmen, wherever
rural communities existed" (letter of January 15, 1954).
g. Usually the village paid him a salary (Werner, 1910: 106 ff.). In addition there
were the usual material advantages inherent in the handling of public money.
120 DESPOTIC POWER — TOTAL AND NOT BENEVOLENT
have him "beaten to a jelly" for neglecting his duty as a local in-
telligence agent.44
The villages of imperial China were less strictly controlled than
those of pre-Conquest Peru, India, and most Near Eastern civiliza-
tions, but even they did not govern themselves. Their main func-
tionaries, who were either appointed or confirmed by the govern-
ment, were inescapably tied to an operational system that served
the interests of the government rather than the interests of the
villagers.
iii. THE GUILDS
The professional corporations of the artisans and traders in hydrau-
lic civilizations were similarly conditioned. Again the appointment
of the leading official is significant; but again it is only one of several
ways in which the despotic state assures its unchecked superiority
and the weakness of the tolerated organization.
Hellenistic Egypt seems to have followed ancient usage in having
persons "working for the State in industry, transport, mining, build-
ing, hunting, etc." gathered into professional groups that were
"organized and closely supervised by the economic and financial ad-
ministration of the king." 45
In the later part of the Roman empire and in Byzantium, the
government "strictly regulated" the activities of the guilds.* Until
the third century the members elected their own headmen; but from
that time on the government made the final decision on guild-
nominated headmen, who, after installation, were supervised and
disciplined by the state.46
In Ottoman Turkey officials inspected the markets 47 and con-
trolled the prices, weights, and measurements,* thus fulfilling func-
tions which in the burgher-controlled towns of Medieval Europe
were usually the responsibility of the urban authorities.48 Further-
more, the state, which in most countries of feudal Europe collected
few if any regular taxes from the urban centers of strongly developed
guild power, was able in Turkey to tax the guilds and, as elsewhere
in the Orient, to employ as its fiscal agents the headmen of these
corporations, who "distributed the tax-quotas of their members" and
who were "personally responsible for their payment." 49
In Hindu India, the setthi, the head of the merchant guild, was
a semi-official closely attached to the ruler's fiscal administration.50
h. Stockle, 1911: 11. For reference to guild heads as tax collectors in Byzantine and
Arab Egypt, see Grohmann, PAP: 279 and n. 8. For conditions at the beginning of
Arab rule, see ibid.: 131, n. 3, and Crum, 1925: 103-11.
i. Specifically this was done by agents of the kadi (Gibb and Bowen, 1950: 287).
CHAPTER 4, B 121
The merchants represented considerable wealth, and their corpora-
tions seem to have been more highly respected than those of the
artisans.51 But this did not make the merchant guild a significant
political entity.
It has been said that the Indian guilds came into prominence
in early Buddhist days.52 In agreeing with this observation, however,
we must be careful not to exaggerate its political significance. Accord-
ing to Fick, "the corporations of the manufacturers fall — partly at
any rate — undoubtedly under the category of the despised castes"; 53
and Dr. Rhys-Davids insists that there is "no instance as yet produced
from early Buddhist documents pointing to any corporate organisa-
tion of the nature of a gild or Hansa league." 5i A legend of the 3d
or 4th century, which is supposed to show that the town of Thana '
was "ruled by a strong merchant guild" actually describes the un-
successful attempt of a group of merchants to combat a competitor
by cornering the market.*
In China the existence of guilds is reliably documented only since
the second half of the first millennium a.d. Under the T'ang and
Sung dynasties the guild heads could be held responsible for the im-
proper professional behavior of their members, such as violations of
the currency regulations,55 theft, and other misdeeds. And in many
cases membership was compulsory.56 The guilds as a unit also had
to render special services to the state.57 In recent centuries the gov-
ernment seems to have left the less significant craft and trade guilds
largely to their own devices; m but the corporations of such important
groups as the salt merchants n and a number of Cantonese firms
dealing in foreign trade ° were strictly supervised.
IV. SECONDARY RELIGIONS
Our information on secondary religions is particularly plentiful for
Islamic society and traditional China. Muslim rulers tolerated Chris-
tianity, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism." But followers of these creeds
had to accept an inferior status both politically and socially, and
/. Poona, south of modern Bombay.
k. Hopkins, 1902: 175. Hopkins' erroneous thesis is taken up by Max Weber in an
argument stressing the temporary political prominence of the Hindu guilds (Weber,
RS, II: 86 ff.). See below, p. 266.
m. Wittfogel, 1931: 580 ft., 714 ff. My 1931 analysis overlooked the state-controlled
guilds of important trades, such as the salt business.
n. The guild heads collect the tax from the "small merchants" (Ch'ing Shih Kao
129. ib).
o. The headmen were appointed by the government (Yueh Hai Kuan Chih 25. 2a).
p. Macdonald, 1941: 96; Grunebaum, 1946: 117. Zoroastrians were tolerated originally
(Mez, 1922: 30); later they were more harshly treated (Buchner, 1941: 381).
122 DESPOTIC POWER — TOTAL AND NOT BENEVOLENT
they were prevented from spreading their ideas. The laws forbade
conversion from Christianity to Judaism or vice versa; and penalties
for apostasy from Islam were severe. Christians were not permitted
to beat their wooden boards loudly,9 or sing in their churches with
raised voices, or assemble in the presence of Muslims, or display
their "idolatry," "nor invite to it, nor show a cross" on their
churches.58 No wonder that the religious minorities — who during
the Turkish period were set apart in organizations called millet 59 —
vegetated rather than throve. The head of the millet was nominated
by the millet r but appointed by the sultan; 60 once in office he
was given "just enough executive power ... to enable him to
collect the taxes imposed on his community by the state." 81
In traditional China, Buddhism was the most important secondary
religion. It reached its greatest prominence in the barbarian dynasties
of infiltration and conquest which ruled over the old northern
centers of Chinese culture during the middle period of the first
millennium a.d.62 The harsh persecutions of 845 initiated a policy
which over time reduced it to a carefully restricted secondary
religion.
Specially designated officials supervised Buddhism and other prob-
lematic creeds.83 The government limited the erection of monasteries
and temples; 64 it licensed the number of priests and monks; 65 it
forbade certain religious activities which in other countries went
unrestricted; and it prescribed that "the Buddhist and Taoist clergy
shall not hold sutra-readings in market-squares, nor go about with
alms-bowls, nor explain the fruits of salvation, nor collect moneys." 6e
Concluding his classical survey of what others have hailed as the
elements of religious liberty, Be Groot asks: "What is the good of
this liberty where the State has cast its system of certification of
clergy within such strict bounds, and has made the admission of
male disciples extremely difficult, of females almost impossible, so
that the number of those who could avail themselves of such liberty,
is reduced to a miserably small percentage of the population? It
makes this vaunted liberty into a farce." 67
b. Genuine Elements of Freedom Nevertheless Present
Thus the hydraulic state restrictively affects practically all secondary
groups and organizations, but it does not integrate them completely
into its power system.
The traditional Chinese family, whose head enjoyed a particularly
q. These boards were used as bells (Grunebaum, 1946: 179).
r. Or its clergy?
CHAPTER 4, B 123
distinguished position legally, was not forced by political and police
pressure to set one family member against another, as is the case in
modern apparatus states. In China and in India the government
permitted the kin groups to settle their internal affairs in accordance
with their own family "laws." f8 In other hydraulic civilizations the
families enjoyed a less formal, but equally effective, quasi-autonomy.
Government control over the villages, although very specific, is
also definitely limited. Even where village officials wield much
power, the peasants who live alongside them have many opportunities
to make their opinions on the day-to-day affairs of the community
felt. And once the demands of the government are satisfied, the
headman and his aides usually settle the affairs of their village with
little, if any, interference from above.
Certain opportunities for self-government seem to have existed in
the villages of Roman Syria 69 and in the Egyptian villages of the
Roman and Byzantine period.70 The village chief of Ottoman
Turkey, like his counterparts in other Oriental civilizations, acted
with great independence as far as the internal affairs of the rural
community were concerned.71
The headman of an Indian village could fulfill his functions suc-
cessfully only by trying "to conciliate the villagers." 72 He could not
be "proud, intolerant, and haughty like the Brahmins"; instead he
had to be "polite and complaisant" toward his equals and "affable
and condescending" toward his inferiors.73 Full-fledged committee
organizations were probably confined to the small minority of rural
settlements dominated by landholding groups, primarily Brahmins.74
But the informal assembly (panchayat) of village elders or all
villagers is said to have been a general institution; 75 and its meet-
ings apparently softened the authority of the headman. Since the
villages, except for official demands, remained more or less in the
charge of the headmen and their aides, they were indeed rural is-
lands, enjoying partial autonomy.76
In the traditional Chinese village the local officials were still
closer to the nonofficiating co-villagers, who, particularly when they
belonged to wealthy or gentry families, might exert great influence
in local affairs.77 Criticism from an "out" group of fellow villagers
might compel the headman and his supporters to resign. Under such
pressure, a "band of men" who had been in power for a long time
might withdraw "from their places, leaving them to those who
offered the criticisms." 78
Such behavior does not imply a formal democratic pattern; but
it has a democratic flavor. Of course, there are various kinds of
official requests; and there is always the constable, and often a tax
124 DESPOTIC POWER — TOTAL AND NOT BENEVOLENT
collector, both government appointed and both spectacularly repre-
senting the interests of the bureaucratic apparatus. But here outside
control usually ends. The government "places no practical restric-
tions upon the right of free assemblage by the people for the con-
sideration of their own affairs. The people of any village can if
they choose meet every day in the year. There is no government
censor present, and no restriction upon liberty of debate. The
people can say what they like, and the local Magistrate neither knows
nor cares what is said." T9
In many hydraulic civilizations the government was as little
concerned about the internal affairs of the guilds. The Indian Law
Books advised the king to recognize the statutes (laws) of the
guilds.80 And similar statutes existed elsewhere.81 The Turkish guilds
were subject to "the overriding authority of the temporal and
spiritual powers, represented by governors, police officers, and
kadis"; 82 and their headmen were held responsible by the govern-
ment for the execution of its fiscal tasks. However, otherwise and
"within the limits imposed by religion, tradition, and 'usage,' . . .
the corporations were relatively free and autonomous." 83 Gibb and
Bowen therefore list them among "the almost self-governing
groups." 84
Gibb's and Bowen's formula is valid also for the secondary
religions. All external restrictions notwithstanding, these religions
did enjoy "some fragments of religious liberty." In traditional China
the priests of the secondary religions, "seeking their own and other
people's salvation, are not forbidden to preach, recite sutras, and
perform ceremonies within doors." 85 And under Islam, "each non-
Moslem congregation administers its own affairs under its responsible
head, a rabbi, bishop, etc." 86 As long as their worship disturbed no
"true believers," and as long as their organization presented no
security threat, the government usually permitted the religious
minorities to live, within their congregations, a more or less autono-
mous life.
5. Conclusion
a. Politically Irrelevant Freedoms
These are indeed modest freedoms! They occur in varying com-
binations in several spheres of life. And by now we should be able
to understand why they do occur, and why they are so limited.
Hydraulic society is certainly not immune to rebellious move-
ments, but kin organizations even in their extended forms are no
political threat to a normally functioning agrobureaucratic des-
CHAPTER 4, B 125
potism. Nor are the villages a serious threat. The relatively far-
reaching autonomy of the traditional Chinese village could, in case
of an insurrection, "be extinguished in a moment, a fact of which
all the people are perfectly well aware." 8T Secondary religious groups
might be a danger in times of great unrest. And this is probably why
the government of imperial China never relaxed its control over
the tolerated creeds and was so ready to suppress certain sects.88
The rebellious potential inherent in the guilds was perhaps never
completely eliminated, but the hydraulic government was able to
paralyze it without exhausting its revenues.
Grunebaum finds it "remarkable to observe how little the Muslim
state was really hampered in its operation by the dead weight of
these semi-foreign organizations within its structure." 89 And others
have commented in the same vein on the political effect of guilds in
hydraulic civilizations. The early Byzantine state had no need to
liquidate the still-existing Roman guilds, "since they were not at
all dangerous politically, and since they could exert no pressure
whatsoever on the government and administration, as did, for in-
stance, the German guilds of the Middle Ages." 90 Massignon, who
more than most of his colleagues considers the Muslim guilds at
least temporarily a political factor, is nevertheless aware that they
"never attained a political influence comparable to that of the
medieval European guilds." 91 Gibb and Bowen consider the powers
of the medieval guilds in Europe so much broader than those of
the Islamic corporations that they doubt the suitability of the very
term "guild" for the latter.92 An equation between the guilds of the
Medieval West and the guilds of India 9S or of China 94 has been
rejected for similar reasons.
To be sure, there existed many resemblances between the two types
of corporations, resemblances created by the peculiarities and needs
of the organized professions; 9S but the profoundly different societal
settings in which they operated gave them profoundly different po-
litical and social qualities. The guildsmen of the later European
Middle Ages frequently became the masters of their towns; and as
such they might play an active part in the power struggles of their
time. The guildsmen of the hydraulic world were permitted a cer-
tain autonomy, not because, politically speaking, they were so strong,
but because they were so irrelevant.
b. A Beggars' Democracy
I n modern totalitarian states the inmates of concentration and forced
labor camps are permitted at times to gather in groups and talk at
will; and not infrequently certain among them are given minor
126 DESPOTIC POWER — TOTAL AND NOT BENEVOLENT
supervisory jobs. In terms of the law of diminishing administrative
returns such "freedoms" pay well. While saving personnel, they in no
way threaten the power of the commandant and his guards.
The villages, guilds, and secondary religious organizations of agro-
managerial society were no terror camps. But like them they enjoyed
certain politically irrelevant freedoms. These freedoms — which in
some instances were considerable — did not result in full autonomy.
At best they established a kind of Beggars' Democracy.
C. HYDRAULIC DESPOTISM— BENEVOLENT
DESPOTISM?
1. Total Power — for the Benefit of the People?
The hydraulic state is not checked by a Beggars' Democracy. Nor is
it checked by any other effective constitutional, societal, or cultural
counterweights. Clearly it is despotic. But does it not at the same time
benefit the people?
2. The Claim and the Reality
a. Operational Necessity Not to Be Confused with Benevolence
The hydraulic state is a managerial state, and certain of its opera-
tions do indeed benefit the people. But since the rulers depend on
these operations for their own maintenance and prosperity, their
policies can hardly be considered benevolent. A pirate does not act
benevolently when he keeps his ship afloat or feeds the slaves he
plans to sell. Capable of recognizing his future as well as his present
advantages, he is rational but not benevolent. His behavior may
temporarily benefit the persons in his power; but this is not its pri-
mary purpose. Given a choice, he will further his own interests, and
not the interests of others.
b. The Rationality Coefficient of Hydraulic Society
On the level of total power, the representatives of hydraulic regimes
proceed in a similar way. Their behavior may to some degree benefit
the persons in their power, and far-sighted advisors and statesmen
may stress the importance of satisfying the people; "but taken as a
group they consider the needs of their subjects in the light of their
own needs and advantages. For this purpose they must (i) keep the
agrarian economy going; (2) not increase corvee labor and taxes to a
a. For India see Bhagavadgita, passim, and Manu, 1886: 229, 396 ff. For China: the
sayings of Confucius and still more important, those of Mencius.
CHAPTER 4, C 127
point where the discouraged peasants stop producing; and (3) not
permit internal and external strife to disrupt the life of the popula-
tion.
The third task — the maintenance of peace and order— confronts
the governments of all societies. The first and second tasks distin-
guish hydraulic from other agrarian civilizations. The continued ex-
istence of agrarian despotism depends on the satisfactory execution
of these three functions. They constitute what may be called the
regime's rationality minimum.
Conquest societies, whose rulers are steeped in nonhydraulic tra-
ditions, often proceed along or near the lowest hydraulic rationality
level. And endogenous masters frequently sink to this level during
periods of decay and disintegration. Strong moves toward a higher
rationality coefficient occur particularly during the earlier phases of
endogenous rule, but they may also occur during later periods of
growth or consolidation.
The formative phase of a conquest society is largely determined by
the conquerors' ability to identify themselves with their new institu-
tional environment. The Mongols were completely alien to the tradi-
tions and mores of the hydraulic civilizations they overran. Chingis
Khan's son, Ogotai, is said to have planned to convert the cultivated
fields of China into pastures; and he refrained from doing so only
because Yeh-lii Ch'u-ts'ai convincingly explained to him the superior
tax potential of the agrarian order. x But although the Mongols main-
tained the hydraulic economy of their new realm, they remained in-
different to its subtler needs. Virtually everywhere they stayed close
to the rationality minimum of hydraulic society.
Mohammed, who lived in arid Arabia, certainly understood the
importance of irrigation for successful crop-raising, although in his
official utterances he rarely refers to the problem, and then essen-
tially to small-scale (well) irrigation.2 His followers preserved, re-
stored, and even created vigorous hydraulic economies in Syria,
Egypt, Iraq, Northwest Africa, Spain, and briefly also in Sicily. The
Manchus were familiar with irrigation agriculture before they moved
southward across the Great Wall to conquer China.3 In this respect
they were not unlike the Incas, who practiced irrigation in the An-
dean highlands before they established their hydraulic empire.4
When they were overrun by the Spaniards, they were probably op-
erating close to their rationality maximum.
c. Whose Rationality Coefficient?
But no matter whether a hydraulic society is operated crudely or
subtly, the claim of benevolence compels us to ask: cui bono? Evi-
128 DESPOTIC POWER — TOTAL AND NOT BENEVOLENT
dently operational tasks may be handled in a way that satisfies the
interests of the rulers at the expense of the nongovernmental forces
of society. Or they may be handled in a way that satisfies the needs
of the people and gives few, if any, advantages to the government.
Intermediate solutions compromise between the two extremes.
As a rule, the three alternatives are seriously considered only if
the actual circumstances permit genuine choice. In the managerial,
the consumptive, and the judicial spheres of hydraulic life this is
indeed the case. But in all these spheres we find the people's interests
sacrificed to the rulers' rationality optimum.
3. The Rulers' Rationality Optimum Prevails
a. Necessity and Choice in the Policy of the Hydraulic Regime
In the territorial states of ancient China, as in other hydraulic civ-
ilizations, philosophers discussed the alternatives of altruistic, bal-
anced, or crudely selfish rule before the representatives of absolutist
power. Confucius pointed out that Yii, the legendary founder of the
protohistorical Hsia dynasty, ate coarse foods, dressed poorly, dwelt
in a modest house, and concentrated his energies on the irrigation
canals. This great culture hero, whom Confucius considered flaw-
less,5 combined a minimum of personal demand with a maximum of
public devotion.
In the later period of China's early history the kings lived very
comfortably; but the best among them are said to have sought a
balance between their own and their subjects' interests. The philos-
opher Mencius, who discussed this point, did not challenge the rul-
ers' right to build lofty edifices, parks, and ponds by corvee labor;
but he asked that the people be permitted to share these enterprises
with their king.6
Thus the philosophers of ancient China assumed that within the
framework of governmental needs there existed genuine alternatives
for action. Without exception, however, the masters of the agrarian
apparatus state satisfied the constructional, organizational, and ac-
quisitive needs of their realm with a maximum stress on their own
advantage and a minimum stress on the requirements of their sub-
jects.
b. The Rulers' Managerial Optimum
I n its early phase the hydraulic regime becomes stronger and wealth-
ier with the growth of its hydraulic economy. But at a certain point
the government can obtain additional revenue by intensifying its
CHAPTER 4, C 129
acquisitive rather than its productive operations. It is at this point
that different power constellations lead to a different managerial
optimum.
The rulers' managerial optimum is maintained whenever the gov-
ernment collects a maximum revenue with a minimum hydraulic
effort. The people's managerial optimum is maintained whenever a
maximum hydraulic achievement is accomplished with minimum adr
ministrative expense. Intermediate arrangements involve the collec-
tion of a large but not maximum revenue, a good part of which is
used to produce sizable but not maximum hydraulic works.
The rulers' responses to these alternatives show clearly the effect
of total power on those who wield it. Beyond the zone of stimulating
discrepancy, they generally push only those hydraulic enterprises
that improve their own well-being; and they are most ingenious in
developing new methods of fiscal exploitation. In short, they aim at
the rulers', and not at the people's, managerial optimum.
c. The Rulers' Consumptive Optimum
Three major alternatives may also be distinguished in the sphere
of consumption. The rulers' consumptive optimum is maintained
whenever the masters of the hydraulic state arrogate to themselves
a maximum of goods, which they may consume with a maximum of
conspicuousness ("splendor"). The people's consumptive optimum is
maintained whenever the nongovernmental members of society re-
ceive a maximum of goods, which they may consume as conspicu-
ously as they please. Intermediate arrangements to some degree favor
the representatives of the government without, however, seriously re-
stricting the quality or conspicuousness of popular consumption.
Again the responses to these alternatives show the effect of total
power on those who wield it. The proverbial splendor of Oriental
despotism as well as the proverbial misery of its subjects have their
roots in a policy that is directed toward the rulers', and not the peo-
ple's, consumptive optimum.
This optimum has both an economic and a legal aspect. By con-
centrating the national surplus in their own hands, the rulers restrict
the amount of goods physically available to nongovernmental con-
sumers. By legally forbidding the general use of prestige-giving ob-
jects, they reserve to themselves conspicuous consumption. In sim-
pler hydraulic civilizations both aims can be achieved without much
difficulty. Increasing social differentiations complicate matters, but
they do not preclude a situation that, for all practical purposes, re-
alizes the rulers' optimum.
130 DESPOTIC POWER — TOTAL AND NOT BENEVOLENT
In the Inca empire the common people ate poorly and had little
opportunity to drink heavily.7 Their rulers ate extremely well, and
they imbibed to excess.8 Moreover, the gulf between the two groups
was widened by laws which reserved the use of gold, silver, precious
stones, colored feathers, and vicuna wool to the rulers. The common-
ers were permitted some modest ornaments, but even these could be
worn only on special occasions.9
Arrangements of this kind are most easily enforced when the great
majority of the commoners are peasants living in government-
controlled and more or less equalitarian villages. The emergence of
many property-based enterprises involves the growth of nonbureau-
cratic forms of wealth, both mobile and immobile; and such a de-
velopment inevitably affects the pattern of consumption.
Even under these circumstances the bulk of the rural and urban
population continues to live poorly; and the small stratum of non-
bureaucratic property-holders sees their fortunes constantly threat-
ened by taxation and confiscation (and in time split up through the
laws of inheritance). But wherever large property-based business be-
came essential, private wealth could not be eradicated, and those
possessing it could not be prevented from enjoying at least some
part of it.
Thus the laws which reserved certain types of dress or other con-
spicuous goods to the ruling class became a crucial means for placing
the men of the governmental machine and the priests of the domi-
nant religion above the mass of the commoners. In traditional China
the officials and their nonofficiating relatives were distinguished by
their houses, furniture, clothes, and vehicles.10 The Indian Law
Books prescribe very precisely the garments, girdles, staffs, etc. to be
used by Brahmins, Kshatriyas, and Vaisyas.11 In the Near East dis-
tinct bureaucratic features of dress are documented for Pharaonic
Egypt,12 Assyria,13 Byzantium,14 the Arab caliphate,15 the Mamluks,16
and Ottoman Turkey.17
Within the limits of these regulations the commoners might — the-
oretically speaking — enjoy their wealth. But they always hid their
most precious possessions, and frequently their fear of confiscatory
action was so great that they avoided all ostentation. The sweeping
persecution of the merchants under the Earlier Han dynasty was
provoked by the blatant show which the rich businessmen had made
of their wealth.18 Under a government which makes no effort to
approach the rationality maximum, potential victims of confiscation
may act with extreme caution. The French physician, Bernier, who
from 1655 to ^58 lived in the Near East and afterward spent almost
ten years in Mogul India, was struck by the frustrating atmosphere
CHAPTER 4, C 131
in which the businessmen of Asia operated. Enterprise found "little
encouragement to engage in commercial pursuits," because greedy
tyrants possessed "both power and inclination to deprive any man
of the fruits of his industry." And "when wealth is acquired, as
must sometimes be the case, the possessor, so far from living with in-
creased comfort and assuming an air of independence, studies the
means by which he may appear indigent: his dress, lodging, and
furniture continue to be mean, and he is careful, above all things,
never to indulge in the pleasures of the table." 19
Bernier's observations must not be pressed. Under more far-sighted
rulers the wealthy merchants of Asia lived luxuriously as long as
their behavior did not invite disaster. And even in the India of
Aurangzeb some few government-protected persons of wealth, Bernier
tells us, "are at no pains to counterfeit poverty, but partake of the
comforts and luxuries of life." 20
But such exceptions do not negate the basic trend. In hydraulic
civilizations wealthy commoners were denied the proprietary security
which the burghers of the later Middle Ages enjoyed; and they did
not dare to engage in the conspicuous consumption which the
medieval businessmen practiced, despite the many sumptuary laws
to which they too had to submit. The lavish display by the repre-
sentatives of the state on the one side and the predominance of
genuine and feigned poverty on the other spectacularly show the
effect of total power on the consumptive optimum of hydraulic
society.
d. The Rulers' Judicial Optimum
Similarly one-sided decisions characterize the judicial field. As
explained above, no society is without standardized norms; and few
advanced agrarian civilizations are without written or codified laws.
Thus it is the special setting and intent that separate the laws of
hydraulic despotism from those of pluralistically controlled states.
The rulers' judicial optimum is maintained whenever the repre-
sentatives of government exert a maximum influence on the formula-
tion and application of their country's laws. The people's judicial
optimum is maintained whenever the nongovernmental elements of
society are decisive. In democratic commonwealths the constitu-
tionally qualified citizen may participate in the formulation of the
laws. He may exercise the functions of a judge, as he did in demo-
cratic Athens, or he may, as a lay juror, cooperate with professionally
trained, but elected judges. In both cases the nongovernmental forces
of society, and not a despotic state, are charged with the application
132 DESPOTIC POWER — TOTAL AND NOT BENEVOLENT
of the law. Intermediate variants are characterized by an increased,
but not absolute, governmental power and by a proportionately de-
creased popular control over the legislature and judiciary.
It is obvious that the first type of judicial optimum prevails in
hydraulic society. And it is equally obvious that in the judicial
sphere, as in others, the masters of the hydraulic state seek a
maximum of results (internal order) with a minimum of govern-
mental effort and expense. This they accomplish not by yielding
important judicial functions to quasi-independent secondary centers
of power, as did the sovereigns of feudal Europe,6 but by permitting
politically irrelevant groups to handle certain of their own legal
affairs, or by permitting magistrates to handle legal matters along
with their other duties, or, where professional judges are the rule,
by having as few full-time judges as possible.
Such conditions preclude the development of independent juries.
They discourage elaborate judicial procedures. And they leave little
room for the functioning of independent professional lawyers. With
these limitations the judges of a hydraulic society settle legal cases
— many of which arise from clashes of proprietary interests, and in
countries with a highly commercialized urban life this field of action
may become very important indeed.21
However, even at their rational best, the laws of such countries
express a fundamentally unbalanced societal situation. Even if they
protect one commoner against the other, they do not protect the
commoners — as individuals or as a group — against the absolutist
state. Shortly after Bernier had commented on this phenomenon,
John Locke did likewise; and his references to Ottoman Turkey,
Ceylon, and Tsarist Russia show him aware that the tyrannical
variant of judicial procedure, which English autocracy failed to de-
velop fully, flourished unhampered under Oriental despotism.
Locke insists that the presence of laws in a despotic regime proves
nothing as to their justness:
"if it be asked what security, what fence is there in such a state
against the violence and oppression of this absolute ruler, the
very question can scarce be borne. They are ready to tell you
that it deserves death only to ask after safety. Betwixt subject
and subject, they will grant, there must be measures, laws, and
judges for their mutual peace and security. But as for the ruler,
he ought to be absolute, and is above all such circumstances;
because he has a power to do more hurt and wrong, it is right
b. The holders of office land and the tax collectors who occasionally act as judges
are, either fully or partially, integrated in the bureaucratic apparatus. See below,
Chap. 8.
CHAPTER 4, C 133
when he does it. To ask how you may be guarded from harm
or injury on that side, where the strongest hand is to do it, is
presently the voice of faction and rebellion. As if when men,
quitting the state of nature, entered into society, they agreed
that all of them but one should be under the restraint of laws;
but that he should still retain all the liberty of the state of
Nature, increased with power, and made licentious by im-
punity. This is to think that men are so foolish that they take
care to avoid what mischiefs may be done them by polecats or
foxes, but are content, nay, think it safety, to be devoured by
lions.22
4. "Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely"
This is a bitter indictment. Contrary to modern apologists for
totalitarian laws and constitutions, Locke refuses to put any trust in
the autocrat's potential benevolence: "he that thinks absolute power
purifies men's blood, and corrects the baseness of human nature, need
read but the history of this, or any other age, to be convinced to
the contrary." 23 Lord Acton's affirmative version of Locke's thesis
is well known: "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts
absolutely." 24
Acceptance of this idea need not include an acceptance of Locke's
pessimistic views on "the baseness of human nature." Man acts from
many motives, which under different circumstances operate with
different strengths. Both self-centeredness and community-centered-
ness seek expression; and it depends on the cultural heritage and the
over-all setting whether one or the other of them will prevail. A
governmental — or proprietary — order leading to the emergence of
absolute power encourages and enables the holders of this power to
satisfy their own interests absolutely. It is for this reason that
agrarian despotism, like industrial despotism, corrupts absolutely
those who bask in the sun of total power.
5. The Rulers' Publicity Optimum
The corrupting influence is further consolidated by a one-sidedly
manipulated public opinion. Public opinion may be shaped in a
number of ways; and here, as elsewhere, the rulers' and the people's
interests diverge sharply. This becomes clear as soon as the major
alternatives are outlined.
The rulers' publicity optimum is maintained whenever the gov-
ernment's real or alleged achievements are given a maximum of un-
critical publicity, while the people's experiences, sufferings, and
views receive a minimum of notice. The people's publicity optimum
134 DESPOTIC POWER — TOTAL AND NOT BENEVOLENT
combines a full presentation of the government's achievements and
shortcomings. Intermediate arrangements favor the government
without keeping the nongovernmental forces of society from stating
their own case.
Independent popular criticism differs both in quality and intent
from the many and continued criticisms made by leading members
of the officialdom. Bureaucratic criticism is vital to the proper
functioning of complex administration, but it is voiced either behind
closed doors or in publications accessible only to a limited number
of educated persons, who are usually members of the ruling group.
In both cases, the people's problems are viewed essentially from
the standpoint of a more or less rationally conceived government
interest.0
Wielding total power, the masters of the hydraulic state can
readily maintain the rulers' publicity optimum. Under socially un-
differentiated conditions, the government's (frequently the sover-
eign's) voice drowns out all criticism except as it may appear in such
inconsequential media as popular tales and songs. More differ-
entiated conditions provide additional outlets in secondary religions
and philosophies, in popular short stories, novels, and plays. But
even these media remain significantly feeble. In contrast to the in-
dependent writers who, under Western absolutism, challenged not
only the excesses but the foundations of the despotic order, the
critics of hydraulic society have in almost every case complained only
of the misdeeds of individual officials or of the evils of specific
governmental acts.** Apart from mystics who teach total withdrawal
from the world, these critics aim ultimately at regenerating a system
of total power, whose fundamental desirability they do not doubt.
6. The Two-fold Function of
the Benevolence Myth
a. It Stresses the Long-range Interest of the Despotic
Regime
The advantages of the benevolence myth for the despotism which
it glorifies are twofold. By presenting the ruler and his aides as
c. In the total managerial societies of today, state-directed popular criticism is used
to supplement and dramatize the government's criticism of problematic elements,
particularly in the middle and lower echelons of the bureaucracy. Criticism of this
kind has been encouraged in many hydraulic societies. The letters to Stalin differ
technically, but not institutionally, from the letters and petitions addressed in the past
to Oriental despots.
d. Often government functionaries indict blundering fellow functionaries or harmful
administrative procedures more sharply than do persons who are not part of the
regime.
CHAPTER 4, C 135
eager to achieve the people's rationality optimum, they enable the
official spokesmen to educate and discipline the members of their
own group. The holder of power, who operates below the rulers'
rationality minimum, endangers the safety of the governmental
apparatus, whereas one who operates above this level enhances the
stability of the regime. He exploits his orchard as an intelligent
gardener should.25 Moreover, the ruler and his men must not weaken
their position by crude managerial neglect, excessive taxation, or
provocative injustice. The myth of an unselfish (benevolent) des-
potism dramatizes these desiderata which, consciously or uncon-
sciously, are underwritten by all thoughtful members of the ruling-
class.
b. It Weakens Potential Opposition
More important still than the impact of the benevolence myth on
the holders of power is its effect on the nongovernmental forces of
society. The myth admits that individual sovereigns and officials
may be unworthy, but it depicts the despotic order as fundamentally
good— in fact, as the only reasonable and commendable system of
government.
Thus the embittered subject, who is permanently exposed to such
propaganda, cannot well strive for the creation of a new and less
despotic order. He and others who feel as he does may withdraw to
the mountains. They may kill some local officials. They may defeat
the government's men in arms. They may even overthrow a tottering
dynasty. But eventually they will only revive — and rejuvenate — the
agromanagerial despotism whose incompetent representatives they
eliminated. The heroes of China's famous bandit novel, the Shui-hu
Ch'uan, could think of nothing better to do than to set up on their
rebel island a miniature version of the very bureaucratic hierarchy
which they were so fiercely combating.
c. The Presence of Good Sovereigns and Just Officials
Fails to Upset the Prevailing Trend
If man were exclusively self-centered, the result of all this would be
very simple indeed. And very sad. But man is also community-
centered. And this side of his character finds expression also in
hydraulic society. To be sure, under the conditions of agrarian
despotism, it is difficult to be a good sovereign or a just official. But
it is not impossible. Throughout the hydraulic world serious-
minded rulers attended to their managerial and judicial duties con-
scientiously, and honest officials strove to prevent fiscal and judicial
oppression. Courageous functionaries insisted on what they con-
136 DESPOTIC POWER — TOTAL AND NOT BENEVOLENT
sidered proper policies, although by doing so they opposed the
wishes of powerful superiors, and occasionally even of the sovereign
himself.
But those who pursue such a course clash with the interest of the
vast self-indulgent and scheming ruling group; and history shows
that only a handful of unusually community-minded (ethically
"possessed") persons was so disposed. Furthermore, even this pa-
thetically small number of "good" men was not completely aware
of how slanted the rulers' optimum was, which they recommended.
Confucius' gentleman bureaucrat, the ideal ruler of the Bhagavad-
gltdj and the "just" statesmen of the ancient Roman or Islamic Near
East all try to be fair within the framework of a society which takes
the patterns of despotic power, revenue, and prestige for granted.
7. Hydraulic Despotism: Benevolent In Form,
Oppressive in Content
Thus agromanagerial despots may present their regimes as benev-
olent; actually, however, and even under the most favorable cir-
cumstances, they strive for their own, and not for the people's,
rationality optimum. They plan their hydraulic enterprises accord-
ing to what benefits their might and wealth. And they write their
own ticket as fiscal masters of the national surplus and as conspicuous
consumers.
Stalin claims that in a modern industrial apparatus state the
culture of a national minority is national in form and socialist in
content.26 Experience shows that the "socialist" (read: apparatchik)
substance quickly wipes out all but the most insignificant national
elements. A similar mechanism is at work in the agrarian apparatus
state. Paraphrasing Stalin's formula and replacing myth by reality,
we may truthfully say that hydraulic despotism is benevolent in form
and oppressive in content.
CHAPTER 5
V
otal terror— total submission
—total loneliness
A. AUTONOMOUS MAN UNDER TOTAL POWER
Man is no ant. His efforts to escape from freedom * show him am-
bivalently attracted by what he ambivalently abandons. The urge to
act independently is an essential attribute of homo sapiens, and a
highly complex one. Not all of its components are socially valuable;
but among them is man's most precious motivating force: the urge
to obey his conscience, all external disadvantages notwithstanding.
What happens to man's desire for autonomy under the conditions
of total power? One variant of total power, hydraulic despotism,
tolerates no relevant political forces besides itself. In this respect it
succeeds on the institutional level because it blocks the develop-
ment of such forces; and it succeeds on the psychological level,
because it discourages man's desire for independent political action.
In the last analysis, hydraulic government is government by in-
timidation.
B. TERROR ESSENTIAL FOR MAINTAINING THE
RULERS' RATIONALITY OPTIMUM
i. The Need
Man is no ant. But neither is he a stone. A policy that upholds the
rulers' publicity optimum confuses the people's mind, without how-
ever eliminating their feelings of frustration and unhappiness. Un-
checked, these feelings may lead to rebellious action. To counter this
dangerous trend the hydraulic regime resorts to intimidation. Terror
is the inevitable consequence of the rulers' resolve to uphold their
own and not the people's rationality optimum.
»»7
138 total terror, submission, loneliness
2. Its Official Recognition:
"Punishment Is the King!"
Many spokesmen of hydraulic despotism have emphasized the need
for rule by punishment. Such a policy may be justified by the argu-
ment that guiltless people are few.1 Confucius preferred education
to punishment; yet he, too, believed that it would take a hundred
years of good government "to transform the violently bad and to
dispense with capital punishment." 2
Thus with varying arguments, punishment has been viewed as an
essential tool of successful statecraft. The Hindu law book of Manu
establishes fear-inspiring punishment as the foundation of internal
peace and order. Punishment, which — of course — must be just, makes
everyone behave properly.3 Without it caste barriers would be
crossed; and all men would turn against their fellows. "Where
Punishment with a black hue and red eye stalks about," * subjects
live at peace. "The whole world is kept in order by punishment." 5
By punishment the ruler protects the weak against the strong,
sacrifice against animal violation, property against its (nongovern-
mental) enemies and social superiority against assaults from below.
"If the king did not, without tiring, inflict punishment on those
worthy to be punished, the stronger would roast the weaker, like
fish on a spit: The crow would eat the sacrificial cake and the dog
would lick the sacrificial viands, and ownership would not remain
with any one, the lower ones would (usurp the place of) the higher
ones." 8 Thus "punishment alone governs all created beings, punish-
ment alone protects them, punishment watches over them while
they sleep." 7 Indeed, "punishment is . . . the king." 8
The rulers of ancient Mesopotamia claimed that they received
their power from the great Enlil.9 This terrifying god symbolizes "the
power of force, of compulsion. Opposing wills are crushed and beaten
into submission." 10 Although he is supposed to use his cruel might
judiciously,11 "man can never be fully at ease with Enlil but feels
a lurking fear." 12 This being so, the sovereign's readiness to identify
himself with Enlil or with deities descended from him is deeply
significant. The Sumerian kings usually identified themselves with
Enlil directly.13 The Babylonians upheld the basic idea, but modi-
fied it. Hammurabi pictured himself as having been "called" by
Enlil; and he names Enlil's son, Sin, as his divine father.14 In both
cases the Mesopotamian rulers stressed the terroristic quality of their
position.
The terror inherent in Pharaonic despotism is symbolized by the
poisonous Uraeus snake, which lies coiled on the ruler's forehead
and threatens his enemies with destruction.16 The king's actions are
CHAPTER 5, B 139
also compared with those of the fear-inspiring lion goddess,
Sekhmet.0
Chinese statecraft learned to express its need for terrifying punish-
ment in the rational and moral form of Confucianism. But punish-
ment was the primary weapon of the so-called Legalists and of such
Legalist-influenced Confucianists as Hsiin Tsu. And it remained a
cornerstone of official policy throughout the imperial period. What
we would call the Ministry of Justice was known in traditional China
as the Ministry of Punishments.
The Islamic ruler saw to it that he was both respected and feared.18
The Arabian Nights, which depicts Harun al-Rashid usually ac-
companied by his executioner, presents in fictional dress a historic
truth. The executioner was a standard feature of the Abbassid
court.
3. The Morphology of Violence
To be sure, all governments deserving the name have ways of im-
posing their will on their subjects, and the use of violence is always
among them. But different societies develop different patterns of
integrating (or fragmenting) violence and of controlling (or not con-
trolling) it.
a. Integrated versus Fragmented Patterns of Violence
In ancient Greece, free men ordinarily wore arms — according to
Thucydides, "because their homes were undefended." 17 In other
words, the government did not monopolize the use of force. With
the growth of public safety the early custom disappeared in most city
states; " but the citizens, who were potential warriors, were still per-
mitted to keep the tools of violence in their homes. Pictorial evidence
portraying the start of a campaign shows "mostly the woman bring-
ing the weapons from the home to the departing man." 19
In Medieval Europe the semi-independent feudal lords from the
beginning represented important secondary centers of military action,
and in the course of time many towns developed their own armed
forces. These feudal and urban nuclei of political and military life
were free to use violence both within their own jurisdictions and
against one another. The vassal, who appeared before his sovereign
a. See Breasted, 1927, I: 327, and cf. II: 92, and IV: 166; Erman, 1923: 78 ff.; and
Wilson, 1950: 11. According to one story, Sekhmet emerged as the suppressor of a
conspiracy. When the supreme god Re "perceived the things which were being
plotted against him by mankind," he conjured up a force to crush the evil schemers.
Then "Sekhmet came into being." She quickly "prevailed over mankind," and desiring
to drink human blood — or what she believed to be human blood, "she drank, and it
was good in her heart" (Wilson, 1950: 11). Cf. Erman, 1923: 78 ff.
140 TOTAL TERROR, SUBMISSION, LONELINESS
with his sword at his side, expressed strikingly the fragmented and
balanced pattern of violence that characterized feudal society.
Concentration of the legitimate uses of force in the hands of the
state does not occur under conditions of total power only. Modern
constitutional government restricts private violence more and more.
But it differs from agrarian and industrial apparatus states in that
the size, quality and use of coercion (army and police) are deter-
mined by the nongovernmental forces of society. The experiences
of classical Greece and the modern West show that a country may
rally powerful armies without its citizens losing control over them.
b. Controlled versus Uncontrolled Violence
Army discipline requires unquestioning subordination; and the
commander in chief of a well-coordinated army — which the feudal
hosts were not — rules absolutely within the limits of his jurisdiction.
However, in a democratic country he remains responsible to the
citizens who control the government. General Eisenhower's com-
ments on the Soviet method of attacking through mine fields indicate
the institutional alternatives. In "a matter-of-fact statement" Marshal
Zhukov explained to the American general: "When we come to a
mine field our infantry attacks exactly as if it were not there. The
losses we get from personnel mines we consider only equal to those
we would have gotten from machine guns and artillery if the Ger-
mans had chosen to defend that particular area with strong bodies of
troops instead of with mine fields." Eisenhower adds drily: "I had
a vivid picture of what would happen to any American or British
commander if he pursued such tactics, and I had an even more
vivid picture of what the men in any one of our divisions would
have to say about the matter had we attempted to make such a
practice a part of our tactical doctrine." 20
The Soviet way saves materiel and time; and it suits to perfection
the rulers' tactical optimum. Obviously this optimum can be realized
only when organized violence is wielded by the masters of an un-
checked state. The social quality of organized violence, like that of
other governmental functions, changes with the over-all setting in
which it develops.
C. THE TERROR OF HYDRAULIC DESPOTISM
The subjects of an agrarian apparatus state have little opportunity
to argue the problem of uncontrolled violence. They may be per-
mitted the possession of small and simple weapons, particularly in
the villages, which have to ward off bandits. But the organized and
CHAPTER 5, <2 141
military use of coercion is essentially concentrated in the hands of
the absolutist rulers, who usually give audience only to unarmed
men. In hydraulic society the monster with "a black hue and red
eye" is no watch-dog tied up by the people, but a tiger that moves
at will.
1. Its Physical Aspect
Like the tiger, the engineer of power must have the physical means
with which to crush his victims. And the agromanagerial despot does
indeed possess such means. He exercises unchecked control over
the army, the police, the intelligence service; and he has at his
disposal jailers, torturers, executioners, and all the tools that are
necessary to catch, incapacitate, and destroy a suspect.
2. Its Psychological Aspect
a. Unpredictability
Furthermore, he can employ these devices with maximum
psychological effect. Everywhere persons wielding great govern-
mental or proprietary power like to shroud certain of their acts in
secrecy; but the procedures of a despotic government are enigmatic
because of the very nature of the regime. Accountable only to them-
selves, the men of the apparatus tend to handle even insignificant
matters with secretiveness; and they raise mystification to an art
when they want to intimidate and surprise. Unpredictability is an
essential weapon of absolute terror.
b. Lenin: ". . . power not limited by any laws"
Lenin defined the dictatorship of the proletariat — which he held
to be the heart of the Soviet regime — as "a power not limited by any
laws." x Like other utterances of Lenin, this formula combines an
impressive half-truth with important fallacies. First, the Soviet
dictatorship was never controlled by the Russian workers; and there
is ample evidence that Lenin knew this. Second, no regime, however
dictatorial, operates without normative regulations or laws of some
kind; and this, too, was well known to Lenin. Before he made the
just-quoted statement, his dictatorial government had already issued
many revolutionary statutes and decrees.2 The despot's right to in-
terpret, change, and override previously established laws is a funda-
mental constitutional and legal principle of absolutist rule. Lenin's
definition stresses with brutal frankness the dictator's unchecked
power to use laws as he wishes. In the sphere of terror he may go
142 TOTAL TERROR, SUBMISSION, LONELINESS
so far that it becomes difficult to distinguish between lawless terror
and terror by law.
c. Lawless Terror and Terror by Law
A chief or ruler does not necessarily override the laws of his
hydraulic community when he himself commits — or gives orders to
commit — acts of terrifying brutality.
In smaller hydraulic tribes autocratic cruelty is no issue, because
the chief, being close to his fellow tribesmen, is unable to exert
power over and above his directing functions. This is the case among
the Suk and their hydraulic neighbors and throughout the Ameri-
can Pueblos.
In larger hydraulic tribes the chief may seek to bolster his incipient
autocracy by the employment of spectacular terror. A Chagga chief,
for instance, may commit all manner of cruelties against his sub-
jects. Ndeserno is said to have torn the hearts from his victims'
bodies while they were still alive and to have had them roasted for
his children.3 A chieftain who went to such extremes was con-
templated with grave apprehension, but, according to Gutmann,
"such cruelties against individuals did not harm his prestige." On
the contrary, the fear they inspired cemented the stability of the
regime.*
The spectacular terror directed by the rulers of ancient Hawaii
may well have served the same purpose; 5 and the so-called Cannibal
Texts of the Old Kingdom suggest a similar situation in prehistoric
Egypt. One of these texts, found in a pyramid, reveals a dead ruler
killing, dissecting, and cooking human beings in the nether world for
his gustatory pleasure; 6 and another reveals him as taking "the
wives from their husbands whenever he wants to and according to his
heart's desire." &
In more differentiated hydraulic civilizations, there is less need to
bulwark the ruler's exalted position by spectacular acts of autocratic
ruthlessness. Although such acts do not completely cease, they are
now initiated mainly by excessively cruel (and/or insecure) sover-
eigns and by the heads of dynasties which operate below the rulers'
rationality maximum. Gaudefroy-Demombynes describes the irra-
tionally terroristic quality of the Abbassid caliphate as follows:
"Improvised executions and the exhibition of heads are part of the
regular life of the Abbassid court. Beginning with the reign of El
Manc,our, when a person is urgently summoned to the palace by
the guards of the caliph, he feels that he has a good chance not to
a. Sethe, PT, II: 354 ft.. The Chagga chiefs seem to have made a like claim on all
girls and women of their realm (Widenmann, 1899: 48; cf. Gutmann, 1909: 25).
CHAPTER 5, C 143
return alive. He makes his testament, says farewell to his family, and
carries his shroud under his arm." b
In these and other instances, the ruler's terroristic behavior was
above rather than against the law. On the other hand, officials who
resorted to extreme brutalities often went beyond even the broadest
possible interpretation of the law. At times they might be held
accountable. But many "lawless" bureaucratic terrorists were criti-
cized only after they were dead.
The excesses of autocratic and bureaucratic terror are an extreme
manifestation of human behavior under total power. Institutionally,
however, they are probably less important than the innumerable acts
of terror that were perpetrated as a matter of routine and within
the flexible frame of despotic law. It was this routine terror in
managerial, fiscal, and judicial procedures that caused certain ob-
servers to designate the government of hydraulic despotism as
"government by flogging."
3. "Government by Flogging"
a. Terror in Managerial Procedures
"The language of the whip" seems to have been employed
regularly in the state corvees of ancient Sumer.7 Under the Pharaohs,
every government administrator could resort to corporal punish-
ment.8 The pictorial records of ancient Egypt show men conducting
all manner of public enterprises with sticks in their hands.9 In the
later part of the 19th century, when the British began to abolish
"government by flogging," the whip was still standard equipment for
insuring the success of the hydraulic corvee.10 Present-day writers who
are greatly impressed by the planned economy of the Incas would
do well to remember that the Inca prince, Garcilaso de la Vega,
glorying in his forebears' achievements, took it for granted that the
one sure way to make people industrious was to threaten them with
beating.11
b. Terror in Fiscal Procedures
Since the days of the Pharaohs, reluctance in paying taxes was
overcome by force. A famous satire of the New Kingdom tells that
the Egyptian peasant who failed to deliver his quota of grain was
"beaten, tied up, and thrown into the ditch." 12 Irregularities in
b. Gaudefroy-Demombynes, 1931: 384. The friend of an Abbassid caliph, who went
to the court every Friday, was "gripped by an intense fear" when he was summoned
on a different day. Had he been maligned? Had he been found wanting? His "anguish
and fear" increased until he discovered to his immense relief that the sovereign
merely wanted him to share an hour of idleness and pleasure (Sauvaget, 1946: 62).
144 TOTAL TERROR, SUBMISSION, LONELINESS
handling state and temple property also called for corporal punish-
ment.1*
The Sacred Law of Islam prohibited torture; but the tax officials
of the caliphs apparently found it impossible to fulfill their task
without resorting to violence.14 Under the Abbassid dynasty, torture
was a concomitant of tax gathering until the year 800; and after a
short interlude of about twelve years it was invoked again, and as
brutally as ever. Government agents "beat the people, imprisoned
them, and suspended heavy men by one arm so that they almost
died." »
The Arthashastra made it mandatory for police and court judges
to see that rural taxes were duly paid, and to use force if necessary.16
The Law Code of imperial China prescribed beating as the standard
punishment for persons who failed to fulfill their fiscal obligations.17
c. Terror in Judicial Procedures
The Chinese Code carried the issue of violence beyond the spheres
of fiscal action. In case of continued resistance and/or inability to
deliver, the defaulter might be taken before a judge; and if necessary,
fiscal terror might be replaced by judicial terror. Judicial torture to
extort evidence — and frequently also to punish — was employed in
virtually all hydraulic civilizations.
In Pharaonic Egypt beating was a regular adjunct of judicial
procedures.18 "He was examined with the rod" was standard phrasing
in the New Kingdom.19
Indian, Chinese, and Islamic sources describe judicial terror in
considerable detail. The Arthashastra states that "Those whose guilt
is believed to be true shall be subjected to torture." 20 With the
exception of the Brahmins," they could be given the "six punish-
ments," the "seven kinds of whipping," the "two kinds of suspension
from above," and the "water-tube." 21 Regarding persons "who have
committed grave offences," the famous book is still more specific.
They could be given the
nine kinds of blows with a cane: 12 beats on each of the thighs;
28 beats with a stick of the tree (nakta-mala); 32 beats on, each
palm of the hands and on each sole of the feet; two on the
knuckles, the hands being joined so as to appear like a scorpion;
two kinds of suspensions, face downwards (ullambane chale);
burning one of the joints of a finger after the accused has been
c. They could not be tortured to extort evidence; but if found gu»Hy of 3 very
grave crime, they could be branded (Arthflfastra, 1923: 270).
CHAPTER 5, C 145
made to drink rice gruel; heating his body for a day after he has
been made to drink oil; causing him to lie on coarse grass for
a night in winter. These are the 18 kinds of torture. . . . Each
day a fresh kind of the torture may be employed.22
In particularly serious cases, such as attempts to seize the king's
treasury, the accused could be "subjected once or many times to one
or all of the above kinds of torture." 2S
The Chinese Law Code describes a number of instruments used
to extract evidence; 2i and the writings of sincere administrators
elaborate on proper and improper methods of torture.28
Canonic prohibitions notwithstanding, the secular courts of the
caliphs extorted evidence by employing "the whip, the end of a rope,
the stick, and the strap on the back and belly, on the back of the
head, the lower parts of the body, feet, joints, and muscles." 26
Similar methods seem to have persisted in the Near East until
recent days. In 19th-century Egypt, "justice, such as it was, was
almost as much a terror to the innocent witness as to the accused
person against whom testimony was borne." 27
d. Western Correspondences Noteworthy for Their
Temporary Strength and Their Limitations
Manifestly, judicial torture is widespread in the hydraulic world.
But is it specific? After all, torture had a definite place in Roman
law. It appears prominently in late feudal and postfeudal Western
legal procedures and in the Inquisition. And it survives today in the
third degree.
All these phenomena must indeed be recognized for what they
are. They remind us grimly that human nature is the same every-
where and that man succumbs to the corrupting influence of power
whenever circumstances permit. Fortunately, the shape of Western
institutions kept these inclinations from asserting themselves last-
ingly. But the momentum they gained at certain times and in
certain places precludes the complacent assumption that what hap-
pened under hydraulic governments — and what is happening today
in the totalitarian states — cannot happen here.
The indigenous free men of ancient Greece and republican Rome
did not employ managerial or fiscal terror against their fellow citi-
zens— the citizens did not render corvee service nor did they pay
substantial taxes — and "as a rule" they were not subjected to judicial
torture.28 Their societal order was too balanced for this; yet it was
not sufficiently balanced to prevent the use of managerial and judicial
terror against certain alien and unfree elements. In Greece, the
146 TOTAL TERROR, SUBMISSION, LONELINESS
position of most slaves was "not much different from that of domestic
animals." 29 Their masters were free to punish them physically; 30
and the not too numerous state slaves occupied in public works
were directed by foremen, who, frequently slaves themselves, "had
a name for being very hard." 31 In Greece both slaves and free aliens
were the targets of judicial torture.32 In republican Rome only slaves
were so treated.33
The crystallization of absolutist power under the empire deprived
the Roman citizens of the protection which their forefathers had
enjoyed against judicial and other forms of governmental terror.
Roman law in late Roman and Byzantine times extended judicial
torture to the bulk of ail free persons.34
A similar change occurred in the later part of the Middle Ages.
Early Frankish (Salic) law permitted only persons of servile status
to be tortured.35 Conflicts between free men were handled by courts
composed of peers. Serious legal issues were settled by ordeal or
judicial combat; 36 and the burghers in medieval towns, who orig-
inally followed these procedures, soon preferred more humane and
rational methods of determining guilt or innocence.37
The introduction of judicial torture — significantly bulwarked by
references to Roman law — coincides with the rise of centralized and
despotic power on a territorial and national scale.38 Most historians
point out that the procedures of the absolutist courts superseded
the feudal methods of ordeal and combat.** Less frequently do they
mention the equally important fact that the new judicial torture also
replaced the significant beginnings of rational judicial procedure
developed in the burgher-controlled towns.e
Changes in judicial procedures were certainly intensified by the
Inquisition; and anyone who studies this period is struck by the
elaborate and cruel tortures employed in questioning heretics. How-
ever, three points deserve attention: First, the Church, which based
itself on medieval Canonic Law, did not originally recommend the
use of extreme measures against heretics.39 Second, judicial torture
was probably initiated by secular agencies/ Third, terroristic proce-
dures were equally harsh under those absolutist governments of
Europe which, in the course of the Reformation, had dissociated
d. Cf. Petit-Dutaillis, 1949: 309; Lea, i8g2: 480, 487 ff., 500 ff., 505. Lea describes in
some detail what he calls the "resistance of feudalism" to the development of judicial
torture (1892: 494 ff.). See also Williams, 1911: 72.
e. In the 14th century the Italian communities continued to combat the increasing
use of torture (Lea, 1892: 506 ff.); and in Liibeck, Germany's foremost city of burgher
independence, legal orders discouraging ordeal, judicial duel, and torture yielded but
slowly to the new absolutist law (ibid.: 483).
f. Lea, 1908, I: 221; cf. Guiraud, 1929: 86. In the 12th century, long before judicial
torture was institutionalized, heretics had been tortured to death (Helbing, 1926: 106 ff.).
CHAPTER 5, C 147
themselves from Rome.40 No doubt the disintegration of medieval
society stimulated both heretic tendencies and the fanatic desire to
eradicate them; but it was only within the framework of rising
absolutist state power that this desire took the form of the Inquisi-
tion.
The limitations of Western absolutism also determined the point
beyond which the representatives of despotic power could not subdue
their own subjects. For a time they were able to employ judicial
terror in secular and religious matters, but managerial and fiscal
terror were not invoked against the bulk of the population. With the
rise of modern industrial society judicial torture was eliminated in
the heartlands of European absolutism, and eventually also in the
terror-ridden slave economy of our southern states. Presently, public
opinion is crusading against such police actions as the third degree.
These methods were never legal; their illegal use is receding before
the growing vigilance and strength of public-minded citizen organiza-
tions.
Pre-Mongol ("Kievan") Russia accepted many elements of By-
zantine law, but not the use of corporal punishment. This device,
as well as judicial torture, seems to have emerged in Russia only
when an Oriental type of despotism arose during and after the Tatar
period.*1 Third degree methods continued to be employed until the
last decades of the Tsarist regime; 42 but torture as a means of
getting evidence was discarded early in the 19th century, when the
growth of property-based industrial forms of life promoted the
restriction of many absolutist features of Russian law and society.'
It was left to the masters of the Communist apparatus state to reverse
the humanizing trend and to reintroduce the systematic infliction of
physical pain for the purpose of extracting "confessions." h
4. Varying Configurations of Terror in the
Hydraulic World
a. Relatively Lenient Developments
In different areas and phases of the hydraulic world the methods of
terror differed. The indigenous Babylonian government, for in-
g. Lea, 1892: 581; Williams, 1911: 79. For occasional late occurrences see Williams,
loc. cit., and Scott, 1943: 264. George Kennan, who at the close of the 19th century,
studied the life of political prisoners and exiles in Siberia, draws attention to the
arbitrary methods employed by the Tsarist police: unjust arrests and imprisonment,
beating and torturing (Kennan, 1891, II: 52 ff.). These methods were certainly brutal,
but the growing strength of public opinion restricted them increasingly; and a com-
parison of the conditions described by Kennan and those to which Soviet prisoners
are subjected today reveals an abysmal retrogression in judicial procedure.
h. The Communist methods of judicial terror vary with time, space, circumstance,
148 TOTAL TERROR, SUBMISSION, LONELINESS
stance, proceeded close to the rulers' rationality maximum; and
Babylonian laws known to us mention, as means of establishing guilt
or innocence, the ordeal, the oath, and witnesses, but not torture.43
To be sure, judicial torture may well have been employed in cases
involving the security of the regime (the Code does not discuss these
matters); even for minor offenses against the interests of the govern-
ment punishment was terrify ingly harsh; * and there is no reason
to assume that the "language of the whip," which accompanied the
Sumerian corvee, was not used by Babylonian master builders and
master irrigators. But while the Babylonian state, local administra-
tive councils notwithstanding, remained an absolutist regime, it acted
as rationally in judicial and many other matters as could be expected
under the conditions of an agromanagerial system of total power.
b. Average and Excessive Developments
In most hydraulic civilizations the rulers employed fully all major
forms of terror, the managerial, the fiscal, and the judicial. In doing
so, they established procedural averages, which occasionally were
codified. These averages usually sufficed to satisfy the needs of the
regime; but not infrequently those who applied them resorted to
methods of extreme brutality, which besides producing quicker re-
sults, yielded a surplus income for the officials who perpetrated
them.
As shown above, not all officials went to such lengths; and for
various reasons extreme malpractice might be punished. But
"moderate" excesses tended to remain unchallenged. And from
and purpose; but despite a certain ingenuity in applying psychological devices, the
main techniques can hardly be claimed as inventions. The "keeping-awake" torture, a
seemingly mild but actually irresistible way of breaking the will of a person under
interrogation, appeared in the Roman arsenal of planned cruelty under the name
tormentum vigiliae (Helbing, 1926: 45). It was re-"invented" in 153a by Hippolytus de
Marsiliis (Williams, 1911: 77). The starvation torture was known as tormentum famis
(Helbing, 1926: 4k). Certain Communist methods parallel procedure used by the
Inquisition. Compare the abrupt changes from bad to good treatment and from
good treatment to bad, and the facing of the prisoner with confessions or alleged
confessions of others (Lea, 1908, I: 415 ff.). Cruder methods of torture, beginning with
simple beating — Roman forerunner: the verbera (Helbing, 1926: 45) — attain their goal
faster than the more "cultivated" tormentum vigiliae. They seem to be extensively
employed particularly in times of crisis, such as the Great Purge, World War II, and
the period of continued stress that followed this war (see Beck and Godin, 1951: 53 ff.;
Weissberg, 1951: 238 ff., 242, 246, 296; SLRUN, 1949: 56, 67, 74 ff.). Of course, many
Soviet modes of torture were foreshadowed by Ivan IV and his successors.
i. Stealing government or temple property was punished with death (Hammurabi,
Sees. 6, 8. See also translator Meek's note js.
CHAPTER 5, D 149
the standpoint of the commoner, the despotic apparatus remained
irrationally formidable even when it employed only the standard
methods of terror. It became frightening when it exhausted its
terroristic potential.
D. TOTAL SUBMISSION
1. Man's Response to the Threat of Total Terror
a. The Postulate of Common Sense and the Virtue of
Good Citizenship: Obedience
Living under the threat of total terror, the members of a hydraulic
community must shape their behavior accordingly. If they want to
survive, they must not provoke the uncontrollable monster. To the
demands of total authority common sense recommends one answer:
obedience. And ideology stereotypes what common sense recom-
mends. Under a despotic regime, obedience becomes the basis of
good citizenship.
Of course, life in any community requires some degree of coor-
dination and subordination; and the need for obedience is never
completely lacking. But in the great agrarian societies of the West
obedience is far from being a primary virtue.
In the democratic city states of ancient Greece the good citizen
was expected to display four major qualities: military courage,
religious devotion, civic responsibility, and balanced judgment.1
Prior to the democratic period, physical strength and courage were
particularly valued.2 But neither the Homeric age nor the classical
period considered unquestioning obedience a virtue in a free man,
except when he served in the army. Total submission was the duty —
and the bitter fate — of the slave. The good citizen acted in accordance
with the laws of his community; but no absolute political authority
controlled him absolutely.
Nor did the loyalty which the medieval knight owed his overlord
result in total submission. The feudal contract bound him to follow
his sovereign only in a qualified and limited way. Among the virtues
of the good knight, good horsemanship, prowess in arms, and courage
ranked high.3 Unquestioning obedience was conspicuously lacking.
In hydraulic society the relation between the ordinary members
of the community and their leaders was regulated very differently.
The quest for integrated subordination appears even at the tribal
level. In the American Pueblos submissiveness and a yielding dis-
position are systematically cultivated.4 Among the Chagga, "respect
150 TOTAL TERROR, SUBMISSION, LONELINESS
for the chief is the first command, which the parents impress upon
their children." 5
In state-centered hydraulic civilizations the supreme holders of
power are not as close to the people as they are in Pueblo society, nor
are they, as in certain Pueblos and among the Chagga, restrained
by clan influence. The masters of an agrarian apparatus state make
greater demands than the Pueblo leaders; and their means for en-
forcing their will far surpass the modest political devices of Chagga
chieftainship.
Thorkild Jacobsen, discussing society and religion in ancient
Mesopotamia, lists obedience as the prime virtue. Essentially "in
Mesopotamia the 'good life' was the 'obedient life.' "° Unlike the
warriors of Medieval Europe, who often fought in small bands and
with little concern for a ranking leader, the Mesopotamians felt that
"soldiers without a king are sheep without their shepherd," "peas-
ants without a bailiff are a field without a plowman," and "work-
men without a foreman are waters without a canal inspector." 7 Thus
the subject was expected to carry out the orders of his foreman, his
bailiff, and — of course — his king. "All these can and must claim
absolute obedience." 8 Submission which cannot be avoided is con-
veniently rationalized: "The Mesopotamian feels convinced that
authorities are always right." 9
Similar concepts can be found in Pharaonic Egypt. A ship must
have its commander, a gang its leader; 10 and whoever wants to sur-
vive— and to succeed — must fit himself into the edifice of superordi-
nation and subordination: "Bow thy back to thy superior, thy over-
seer from the palace [the government]. . . . Opposition to a supe-
rior is a painful thing (for) one lives as long as he is mild." "
The law of Hindu India prescribes subordination to both secular
and priestly authority. Those who oppose the king's commands suffer
"various kinds of capital punishment." l2
The Koran exhorts believers to obey not only Allah and his
prophet but also "those in authority amongst you." 1S In the ab-
solutist states established by Mohammed's followers, this passage was
invoked to emphasize the basic importance of obedience in main-
taining governmental authority.14
Confucius envisioned an authority that would realize the ruler's
rationality maximum. He therefore insisted that every official should
judge the propriety of the ruler's actions; and when conflict became
serious, a top-ranking minister might retire.15 Normally, however,
the ideal functionary obeyed his ruler; 1C and reverence toward a
superior was a basic duty.17 The commoner was given no choice
whatsoever. Since he could not understand the issues involved, he
CHAPTER 5, D 15I
had to be "made to follow" what superior authority and insight
dictated.18 In Confucius' good society, as in its Indian and Near
Eastern variants, the good subject was the obedient subject.
2. Preparation for Total Obedience:
Disciplinary Education
The good subject was also the obedient son. For Confucius an
education that demands absolute obedience to parent and teacher
forms the ideal foundation on which to build absolute obedience to
the masters of society.
No similar correlation can be established for Medieval Europe.
The son of a feudal knight was mercilessly disciplined. At an early
age he was compelled to ride a high horse, while tied to the saddle;
and to toughen him further he was buried in horse manure.19 Curses
and blows were frequent accompaniments to growth. Feature for
feature, the early education of the young feudal knight seems to
have been as harsh, or harsher, than the education of the young son
of an Oriental official. And the apprenticeship of the young Euro-
pean craftsman was no bed of roses either.20
But the behavior of the young burghers on festive occasions
showed that the educational disciplines to which they had been ex-
posed were not seriously inhibiting,21 and the behavior of young
knights remained equally carefree. Both groups matured under con-
ditions that were built on contractual relations rather than on ab-
solute authority, and they took their early frustrations as the passing
experience that it actually was.
Conversely, similar — or even less harsh — disciplines may be emi-
nently effective for assuring total submission. In ancient Mesopo-
tamia, "the individual stood at the center of ever wider circles of
authority which delimited his freedom of action. The nearest and
smallest of these circles was constituted by authorities in his own
family: father and mother, older brother and older sister." 22 And
"obedience to the older members of one's family is merely a begin-
ning. Beyond the family lie other circles, other authorities: the
state and society." Each and every one of them "can and must claim
absolute obedience." 23
The wisdom of ancient Egypt consciously interlinks obedience
at home to obedience to the official. The obedient son "will stand
well in the heart of the official, his speech is guided with respect to
what has been said to him." 2i In Hindu India the demand for sub-
ordination to the secular and priestly authorities is reenforced by
the demand for subordination in the personal spheres of life. Obedi-
Ig2 TOTAL TERROR, SUBMISSION, LONELINESS
ence is particularly due "the teacher, the father, the mother, and an
elder brother." 2B
Confucianism describes filial piety as a unique preparation for
civic obedience: "There are few who, while acting properly toward
their parents and older brothers, are inclined to oppose their su-
periors. And there is nobody who, while averse to opposing his
superiors, is inclined to making a rebellion." 26
3. The Great Symbol of Total Submission:
Prostration
Education teaches man to obey without question, when despotic
authority so demands. It also teaches him to perform gestures of
reverence when the symbol rather than the submissive action is re-
quired. True, all cultures have ways of demonstrating respect; and
many gestures indicate subordination.27 But no symbol has expressed
total submission as strikingly, and none has so consistently accom-
panied the spread of agrarian despotism, as has prostration.
Total submission is ceremonially demonstrated whenever a sub-
ject of a hydraulic state approaches his ruler or some other repre-
sentative of authority. The inferior man, aware that his master's
wrath may destroy him, seeks to secure his good will by humbling
himself; and the holder of power is more than ready to enforce and
standardize the symbols of humiliation.
The inferior person may indicate his submissiveness by placing
one hand over the other, as if they were tied together.28 He may raise
his open hands as a gesture of self-disarmament.0 Or going to ex-
tremes, he may fall forward on all fours like an animal, strike his
head on the ground, and kiss the dust. Under the shadow of Oriental
despotism, prostration is an outstanding form of saluting the sov-
ereign or other persons of recognized authority. The details vary;
and occasionally symbols with similar intent are used. Generally
speaking, however, prostration is as characteristic for hydraulic so-
ciety as it is uncharacteristic for the higher agrarian civilizations
of classical antiquity and the European Middle Ages.
The absence of prostration in primitive hydraulic societies indi-
cates the limitations of chiefly authority under tribal conditions.
The Pueblo Indians hold their cacique in the highest esteem; but
there are no evidences of the demonstrative submission that found
open expression in the higher hydraulic civilizations of Aztec
Mexico or Inca Peru. The Chagga tribesmen hail their chieftain;
a. 0strup, 1929: 28 ff. Cf. the modern "hands up."
CHAPTER 5, D 153
and they murmur respectfully when he arrives or rises.29 But this
apparently is as far as their display of deference goes.30
In state-centered hydraulic civilizations prostration occurred al-
most everywhere. In ancient Hawaii political power was sufficiently
terrifying to make the commoners crawl before their rulers.6 In
Inca Peru, even the highest dignitary approached his sovereign like
a bearer of tribute, his back bent under a load.31 In pre-Conquest
Mexico supreme reverence was expressed by prostration. Taught in
the "colleges," 82 it was performed before royalty, men of distinc-
tion,33 and persons believed to be divine.34
In China prostration was practiced from the early days of the
Chou dynasty — that is, during the pre-empire period of the terri-
torial states; 35 and it prevailed throughout all subsequent phases of
Chinese history. The experiences of the European envoys, who were
asked to kowtow before the Manchu emperor, reveal both the im-
portance of the custom and the embarrassment it caused Western
visitors.
In the classical days of Hindu India great respect was shown by
embracing a person's feet; and the king seems to have been ap-
proached in an attitude of prayer.36 Prostration was performed be-
fore deities and the teacher's young wife.0 However, in the later part
of the Hindu period, the prime gesture of total submission was
also performed before the sovereign.37 Under Muslim rule both the
sovereign 3S and venerable Hindus 39 were so honored.
The importance of prostration in the Near East can be amply
documented. The records of Pharaonic Egypt describe the whole
country as "prone upon the belly" before a representative of the
king.40 Faithful subordinates are shown crawling, and kissing (or
sniffing) the monarch's scent.41 Pictorial evidence suggests that in
the New Kingdom high dignitaries employed other gestures of
reverence; 42 but contemporary sources do not say that they ceased
prostrating altogether. They indicate clearly that lowly persons and
subject peoples continued to prostrate.43
In ancient Mesopotamia prostration was performed before the
gods, the ruler, and other distinguished personalities,44 and it was
performed also in Achaemenian Persia.45 It persisted in the Hel-
b. Fornander, HAF, VI: 12, 34 (religious prostration), 26 (before the king's idol);
prostration before ruler: Kepelino, 1932: 12; Alexander, 1899: 26 ff.; Blackman, 1899:
23-
c. Cf. Manu, 1886: 69. In the second case, prostration obviously was performed in
order to prevent bodily contact. For religious prostration, see Jatakam, III: 284; IV: 231;
V: 274; VI: 302.
154 TOTAL TERROR, SUBMISSION, LONELINESS
lenistic empires of the Seleucids 4e and the Ptolemies,47 and also in
Sassanid Persia.48 It became the standard gesture of reverence in
Eastern Rome on the eve of the Byzantine period.49 Needless to say,
it fitted the social climate of Byzantium to perfection.50
The followers of Mohammed originally prostrated only in prayer.
Eventually, however, the "Orientalized" Arabs, like the Greeks be-
fore them, prostrated also in secular life.51 In Ottoman Turkey the
practice prevailed until close to the end of the Sultanate.*
Thus in the hydraulic world prostration was the outstanding ex-
pression of submission and reverence. Occasionally, equivalent ges-
tures were used for the same purpose; and in a number of cases
prostration spread to countries that were not ruled by Orientally
despotic governments. However, the fate of the proskynesis in Medi-
eval Europe shows how difficult it was to force this humiliating salu-
tation on a politically balanced society. Some rudiments of the By-
zantine ceremony survived in the ceremonial of the Western
Church; yet the attempt of certain Carolingian rulers to uphold it
as a secular ritual did not succeed. In Sicily under Roger II and
Frederick II prostration was practiced temporarily probably under
the influence of the Byzantines,52 or the Arabs, who immediately
preceded the Norman rulers.53
No doubt usage dulled man's sensitivity to the humiliating intent
of prostration, and aesthetic accomplishment sweetened perform-
ance. But no matter how much prostration was rationalized, it re-
mained through the ages a symbol of abject submission. Together
with managerial, fiscal, and judicial terror, it spectacularly marked
the range — and the total power — of agrarian despotism.
E. TOTAL LONELINESS
1. Loneliness Created by Fear
Demonstrative and total submission is the only prudent re-
sponse to total power. Manifestly, such behavior does not gain a
superior's respect; but other ways of proceeding invite disaster.
Where power is polarized, as it is in hydraulic society, human rela-
tions are equally polarized. Those who have no control over their
government quite reasonably fear that they will be crushed in any
conflict with its masters.
And the formidable might of the state apparatus can destroy not
merely objectionable nongovernmental forces — with equal thor-
oughness it may also overwhelm individual members of the ruling
d. 0strup, 1929: 32; Lane, 1898: 211 (kissing the feet as a sign of abject submission).
CHAPTER 5, E 155
group, the ruler himself included. Many anxieties darken the path
of life; but perhaps none is as devastating as the insecurity created by
polarized total power.
a. The Ruler: Trust No One!
The ruler, being most illustrious, is also most to be envied. Among
those near him, there are always some who long to replace him.
And since constitutional and peaceful change is out of the question,
replacement usually means one thing and one thing only: physical
annihilation. The wise ruler therefore trusts no one.
For obvious reasons the innermost thoughts of despots have been
little publicized. But observable behavior and utterances confirm
our assumption. Egyptian papyri preserve what is said to be a
Pharaoh's advice to his son. The message reads: "Hold thyself apart
from those subordinate to (thee), lest that should happen to whose
terrors no attention has been given. Approach them not in thy
loneliness. Fill not thy heart with a brother, nor know a friend. . . .
(even) when thou sleepest, guard thy heart thyself, because
no man has adherents on the day of distress." x
The Arthashastra specifies the dangers which surround the ruler,
and it discusses the many means by which they can be averted. His
residence must be made safe. Measures must be taken against poi-
soning.2 All members of his entourage must be watched and con-
trolled. The king must spy on his prime minister.3 He must beware
of his close friends,* of his wives,5 of his brothers,8 and most particu-
larly of his heir apparent. According to an authority frequently
quoted in the classic of Indian despotism, "Princes, like crabs, have
a notorious tendency of eating up their begetter." 7 To prevent this
from happening, the manual lists numerous ways by which a ruler
can protect himself against his son.8
b. The Official: Eternal Suspicion
Nor does the official live securely. "Self-protection shall be the
first and constant thought of a wise man; for the life of a man un-
der the service of a king is aptly compared to life in fire; whereas
fire burns a part or the whole of the body, if at all, the king has the
power either to destroy or to advance the whole family." 9
A Persian variant stresses particularly the danger that lurks be-
hind seeming bureaucratic safety and success: "Should [the ruler]
at any time pretend to you that you are completely secure with him,
begin from that moment to feel insecure; if you are being fattened
156 TOTAL TERROR, SUBMISSION, LONELINESS
by someone, you may expect very quickly to be slaughtered by
him."10
And the need for eternal suspicion is by no means confined to
those occupying the top of the bureaucratic pyramid. In traditional
China, as in other hydraulic civilizations, "high officials cannot but
be jealous of those below them, for it is from that quarter that their
rivals are to be dreaded. The lower officials, on the other hand, are
not less suspicious of those above them, for it is from that quarter
that their removal may be at any moment effected."
11
c. The Commoner: the Fear of Being Trapped by Involvement
The commoner is confronted with problems of a very different
kind. He is not worried by the pitfalls inherent in autocratic or
bureaucratic power, but by the threat which this power presents to
all subjects. A regime that proceeds unchecked in the fields of taxa-
tion, corvee, and jurisprudence is capable of involving the com-
moners in endless predicaments. And caution teaches them to avoid
any unnecessary contacts with their government.
Smith ascribes the mutual distrust that, according to him, prevails
in traditional China to the people's fear of getting involved.12 In the
Arabian Nights, a corpse is shoved from door to door, because each
house owner is convinced that the authorities will hold him respon-
sible for the death of the unknown man. The frequently observed
reluctance to help a drowning stranger is caused by similar reason-
ing: If I fail to rescue the poor devil, how shall I prove to the au-
thorities that I did not plan his submersion?
Those who walk away when they can be of help are neither dif-
ferent from nor worse than other human beings. But their behavior
makes it clear that voluntary participation in public matters, which
is encouraged in an open society, is extremely risky under conditions
of total power. The fear of getting involved with an uncontrollable
and unpredictable government confines the prudent subject to the
narrow realm of his personal and professional affairs. This fear sepa-
rates him effectively from other members of the wider community
to which he also belongs.
2. The Alienation Potential of Total Power
Of course, separation is not necessarily alienation: an artisan whose
forebears left their rural community may consider himself different
from the inhabitants of his home village. Or an intellectual may feel
himself out of tune with his co-nationals, or in times of crisis he
may completely reject a social order that apparently has no use for
CHAPTER 5, E 157
him. In such situations he may know loneliness. But as long as he
can join with others of like mind, his alienation from society will
be only partial.
And this partial alienation differs profoundly from total aliena-
tion. Only when a person believes he is deserted by all his fellows
and when he is unable to see himself as an autonomous and inner-
directed entity, only then can he be said to experience total aliena-
tion. Under the terror of the semimanagerial agrarian apparatus
state he may know total loneliness without total alienation. Under
the terror of the modern total managerial apparatus state he may
suffer total alienation. Persistent isolation and brainwashing may
bring him to the point where he no longer realizes he is being de-
humanized.
3. Every-day Adjustments
There were many lonely people among the free men of classical
Greece; a and there are many lonely people in the democratic coun-
tries of today. But these free individuals are lonely in the main be-
cause they are neglected and not because they are threatened by a
power that, whenever it wants to, can reduce human dignity to
nothingness. A neglected person can maintain associations of some
kind with a few relatives or friends; and he may overcome his pas-
sive and partial alienation by widening his associations or by estab-
lishing new ways of belonging.
The person who lives under conditions of total power is not so
privileged. Unable to counteract these conditions, he can take refuge
only in alert resignation. Eager to avoid the worst, he must always be
prepared to face it. Resignation has been an attitude of many free
individuals at different times and in different segments of open and
semi-open societies. But prior to the rise of the industrial apparatus
state it was a predominant attitude mainly within the realm of Orien-
tal despotism. Significantly, stoicism arose in antiquity when the bal-
anced society of classical Greece gave way to the Hellenistic system
of total power initiated by Alexander.
4. Total Loneliness in the Hour of Doom
The hour of doom realizes what every-day life foreshadows. The
methods of final destruction operate in one way in a democratically
balanced world and in another under the rule of total power.
The free citizen of an open society may fear severe punishment
a. The tragic and permanent alienation of the slave is too obvious to need elabora-
tion.
CHAPTER 6
/ he core, the margin, and the submargin
of hydraulic societies
A. PRELIMINARY STOCK-TAKING IN THE MIDDLE
OF THE JOURNEY
1. Some Basic Results
Our inquiry has led to several basic conclusions. First, the institu-
tional order, hydraulic society, cannot be explained by reference to
geographical, technological, and economic factors alone. While re-
sponse to the natural setting is a key feature, it plays a formative
hydraulic role only under very specific cultural conditions. And it
involves organizational rather than technological changes. Second,
some features of hydraulic society appear also in other agrarian
orders. But hydraulic society is specific in the quality and weight of
two of its features (hydraulic organization and agrohydraulic des-
potism). And it is their effective combination that brings into being
an operational whole, a "going concern" which is able to perpetuate
itself over millennia. The historian of human freedom must face
this fundamental empirical fact: among the world's higher pre-
industrial civilizations, hydraulic society, the most despotic of them,
has outlasted all others.
2. Three Problems Deserving Further Investigation
Why does hydraulic society show such persistence? Is it because of
its state-managed system of hydraulic agriculture? An upholder of
the economic interpretation of history will believe this; indeed Marx
himself argued so.
But it is significant that Marx and Engels viewed the Tsarist
government of post-Mongol Russia as Orientally despotic,1 although
both certainly knew that Russian agriculture was not hydraulic.
The difficulty from the standpoint of the economic determinist
is manifest; and it is increased when we realize that, beside Tsarist
Russia, certain other agrodespotic states fulfilled the vital organiza-
161
l6g CORE, MARGIN, AND SUBMARGIN
tional and acquisitive functions of hydraulic society without main-
taining a hydraulic economy proper. The capacity of these regimes to
perpetuate themselves successfully suggests a decisive developmental
role for the organizational and power features of the agromanagerial
order.
Obviously the issue is highly important, not only theoretically and
for the past, but politically and for the present. It is for this reason
that in this chapter we shall examine the peculiarities and the inter-
relation of the core and the margin of hydraulic society. In the
chapters immediately following we shall analyze two other aspects
of the matter: the power-determined character of private property
and class rule in the hydraulic world.
3. Problems of Hydraulic Density
How hydraulic was hydraulic society? Obviously there are areas of
maximum hydraulic density and others which, although they are
hydraulically less dense, may still be considered hydraulic societies
proper. What is the institutional pattern of the margin of hydraulic
society? And at what point does this margin lose its societal identity?
Is there an institutional divide beyond which features of hydrau-
lic society occur only sporadically in a submarginal form?
Assuming that such shades of institutional density exist, are they
static and permanent? Or did hydraulic civilizations shift from the
margin to the submargin and vice versa? With these questions in
mind we shall now discuss the core areas, the margin, and the sub-
marginal zones of the hydraulic world.
B. HYDRAULIC CORE AREAS
The institutional quality of a hydraulic area varies in accordance
with its spatial cohesiveness and the economic and political weight of
its hydraulic system. It may be modified further by the relative
significance of the second major element of hydraulic operation:
flood control.
1. How Continuous Is the Hydraulic System of a
Given Hydraulic Area?
The spatial (and organizational) cohesiveness of a given hydraulic
economy is primarily determined by the continuous or discontinuous
form of its water supply. A hydraulic commonwealth is apt to create
a single more or less continuous system of irrigation and flood
control in a landscape that contains only one major accessible source
of humidity. Such a development frequently occurs in oasis-like
CHAPTER 6, B 163
regions crossed by a river that gathers the bulk of its water in a more
humid hilly or mountainous hinterland. The river-valley states of
ancient coastal Peru maintained continuous hydraulic systems. In
the Old World, Sindh and the Nile Valley civilization of Egypt are
classical variants of the same pattern.
If an arid landscape includes several not too widely separated
rivers, the canals leading from them may form a relatively continuous
hydraulic network. However, few arid regions are so privileged.
Lower Mesopotamia is more the exception than the rule.
In most cases the rivers of a potentially hydraulic landscape lie
too far apart to permit interlocking through connecting canals. Con-
sequently a hydraulic commonwealth covering a multi-river area
generally maintains a discontinuous system of embankments and
canals. Individuals depending on a limited and single water supply
may reproduce a limited tribal or national culture for a long period
of time. This happened in the Rio Grande area and, on a much more
impressive scale, in Pharaonic Egypt. But the self-perpetuating hy-
draulic tribes played an insignificant part on the stage of human
history; and even such national complexes as Egypt eventually out-
grew their early political isolation. The great majority of all his-
torically conspicuous hydraulic nations and empires include regions
which depend on a continuous hydraulic unit; yet, taken as a whole,
the hydraulic system of these larger political units have a definitely
discontinuous form.
2. How Great Is the Economic and Political
Weight of a Given Hydraulic Economy?
Since most of the larger hydraulic civilizations maintain discon-
tinuous hydraulic systems, lack of cohesiveness obviously is no reli-
able index for establishing hydraulic density. The economic and
political weights of a discontinuous hydraulic system must be estab-
lished by other means.
In arid areas a discontinuous hydraulic system occurs occasionally;
in semi-arid areas it is virtually the rule, at least for societies that
have outgrown their most primitive beginnings. As indicated above,
the semi-arid areas which have given rise to hydraulic developments
are numerous and large; and within them the relation between
hydraulic agriculture and nonhydraulic (small-scale irrigation and
rainfall) farming varies enormously.
Three major shades of this relation can be distinguished:
1) The hydraulically cultivated land may comprise more than half
of all arable land. Since hydraulic agriculture tends to produce
164 CORE, MARGIN, AND SUBMARGIN
yields that, by and large, are as high as those produced by small-
scale irrigation and definitely higher than the average yields of the
rainfall farmers, a hydraulic agriculture which covers more than 50
per cent of all arable land may be said to be in a position of absolute
economic superiority.
This condition is found most frequently in arid regions; and
frequently, although not necessarily, it is found together with a
continuous hydraulic system. In most Rio Grande Pueblos the bulk
of all land is irrigated; and the bulk of irrigation water is drawn from
communally operated irrigation ditches. In Egypt, from the dawn of
history, the great majority of all fields was irrigated either by inunda-
tion or through canals.1 In the delta a meager crop can be grown
by methods of rainfall farming; ° and throughout the country, wells
can be used to water vegetables, gardens, and orchards.2 But as in
the case of the Rio Grande Pueblos, these supplementary forms of
cultivation do not challenge the overwhelming economic superiority
of the hydraulic economy.
2) The hydraulically cultivated land, even when it comprises less
than half the country's arable acreage, may nevertheless yield more
than all other arable land. In this case, hydraulic agriculture may be
said to hold a position of relative economic superiority. On the eve
of China's unification the state of Ch'in enormously strengthened its
agrarian heartlands (in present Shensi) by constructing the Cheng
Kuo irrigation works; and this action made Ch'in richer and more
powerful than any other territorial state. In the subsequent period,
the whole area of what had been Ch'in h comprised about one-third
of the empire's area, but, according to Pan Ku, it accounted for 60
per cent of its wealth.8 Ssu-ma Ch'ien considered the former Ch'in
territory "ten times as rich as [the rest of] the empire." * Neither of
these statements can be verified, and they certainly should not be
pressed. Yet they illustrate what we mean by the relative economic
superiority of a vigorous hydraulic system of agriculture.
3) The hydraulically cultivated land, even if it is inferior both in
acreage and yield to the remaining arable land, may nevertheless be
sufficient to stimulate despotic patterns of corvee labor and govern-
ment. In this case the larger, nonhydraulic area essentially produces
food, whereas the smaller, hydraulic area, in addition to producing
a. After mentioning the cultivation of barley in the Nile delta as one of the examples
of rainfall agriculture close to the minimum limit, the Agricultural Yearbook of 1941
concludes: "Production year after year with these small amounts of moisture is possible
only where the distribution of rainfall during the year and other climatic conditions
are favorable and where the moisture falling in two or more years is stored for one
crop" (CM: 322).
b. In addition to the Cheng Kuo complex, this included among other regions the
classical irrigation plain of Szechwan.
CHAPTER 6, B 165
food, produces power, and it produces power that is sufficiently
strong and sufficiently despotic to control both sectors of the agrarian
society.
This evidently happened in numerous semi-arid regions that were
suitable — in key areas — for hydraulic operations. During the forma-
tive period of many great hydraulic civilizations despotic power
probably arose under exactly such conditions; and the pattern has
been perpetuated in historic times. Assyria and Mexico applied
methods of mass control that were imperative only in relatively small
hydraulic regions to large areas of small-scale irrigation and rainfall
farming. Under these conditions the hydraulic economy, though pre-
dominant neither in acreage nor yield, nevertheless occupied a posi-
tion of organizational and political superiority.
3. How Strong Is the Second Major Element of
Hydraulic Operation: Flood Control?
Where the hydraulic system prevails economically, the relative
strength of protective (as compared with productive) water works
is of little concern. An elaborate hydraulic agriculture involves an
elaborate bureaucratic development; and the despotic regime is thus
conveniently bulwarked.
Things are different when the hydraulic system, although suffi-
cient to establish political supremacy, involves only modest bureau-
cratic developments. To be sure, the maintenance of large installa-
tions for flood control always necessitates comprehensive operations
of mobilization and on-the-spot direction; and it also heightens the
quasimilitary authority of the managerial government in situations of
absolute or relative economic hegemony. But the protective factor
becomes particularly important when economic hegemony is lack-
ing. The fight against large and disastrous floods tends to expand
government-directed mass mobilization further than would produc-
tive hydraulic action alone. And the disciplinary measures involved
in protective enterprises do much to cement the power of a govern-
ment that derives only a limited managerial authority from its
agromanagerial achievements. In the lake area of ancient Mexico
the struggle against periodic and devastating floods probably re
quired much larger corvee teams than did the regional irrigation
works. The significance of this fact for the aggrandizement of govern-
ment power can be easily imagined.
4. Compact and Loose Hydraulic Societies
Our argument does not exhaust all morphological possibilities. But
it establishes one point beyond doubt: The core areas of the hydrau-
l66 CORE, MARGIN, AND SUBMARGIN
lie world manifest at least two major types of hydraulic density.
Some are hydraulically compact, whereas others are hydraulically
loose.5 A hydraulic society may be considered "compact" when its
hydraulic agriculture occupies a position of absolute or relative
economic hegemony. It may be considered "loose" when its hydraulic
agriculture, while lacking economic superiority, is sufficient to assure
its leaders absolute organizational and political hegemony.
This primary division may be supplemented by some important
secondary divisions. A hydraulic society, whose hydraulic agriculture
is economically dominant and spatially continuous, is an extreme
variant of the compact pattern (C i). A hydraulic society whose
hydraulic agriculture is economically dominant but discontinuous is
a less extreme variant of this same pattern (C 2). Distinction between
absolute (a) and relative (r) economic hegemony enables us to carry
the differentiation still further (Ca 1 and Cr 1, Ca 2 and Cr 2).
A loose hydraulic society may include among its installations large
units which are compact within their immediate locale or which go
beyond the borders of a single region. The relatively great hydraulic
weight of this pattern may be indicated by the symbol "L 1." A
loose hydraulic society whose largest hydraulic units fail to achieve
economic hegemony even regionally represents the lowest hydraulic
density type (L 2). Another differentiating factor, the relatively
strong development of protective hydraulic works, may be indicated
whenever this seems desirable by the formula "-f- prot."
A few examples indicate, on a tribal or national scale, the four
main categories of hydraulic density:
Compact 1: Most Rio Grande Pueblos, the small city states of
ancient coastal Peru, Pharaonic Egypt.
Compact 2: The city states of ancient Lower Mesopotamia, prob-
ably the state of Ch'in on the eve of the Chinese empire
Loose 1: The Chagga tribes, ancient Assyria, the old Chinese state
of Ch'i (L 1 + prot.), and perhaps Ch'u.
Loose 2: Tribal civilizations: The Suk of East Africa, the Zuni of
New Mexico. State centered civilizations: indigenous Hawaii,
many territorial states of ancient Mexico (L 2 + prot.).
5. The Great Agromanagerial Empires — Usually
Loose Hydraulic Societies
Dominion of one city state over a number of other city states leads
to the establishment of rudimentary empires. Conformations of this
kind arose in ancient Lower Mesopotamia, on the coast of ancient
Peru, in Chou China, and in Buddhist India.
CHAPTER 6, B 167
In the first two cases the components were of the compact hydrau-
lic type; and the quasi-imperial units were also hydraulically com-
pact. Usually, however, military and political expansion resulted in
the creation of larger and less homogeneous conformations. The
great hydraulic empires tended to include territorial and national
units of different hydraulic densities. They formed loose hydraulic
societies, which frequently included compact hydraulic subareas.
The Babylonian and Assyrian empires, China during the periods of
unification, the great empires of India, Achaemenian Persia at the
height of its expansion, the Arab caliphate, Ottoman Turkey, the
Inca empire, and the federation of Aztec Mexico — all were hydrau-
lic societies, and all, perhaps with the exception of Mexico, belonged
to the category L 1 .
The hydraulic glands of the great agromanagerial empires have
been accorded little systematic attention. A morphological study of
the hydraulic order of traditional China reveals many density patterns
and significant super-regional arrangements.0 Mez' thoughtful anal-
ysis of Abbassid power indicates the number and variety of the
great hydraulic areas that for shorter or longer periods lay within
the jurisdiction of the Baghdad caliphate: Egypt, South Arabia,
Babylonia, Persia (northeast and south Transoxania and Afghani-
stan).6 All these areas posed "great irrigation problems," 7 and the
Arab sources note both the technological means and the numerous
personnel required to solve them.8
6. Degrees of Hydraulic Density and Degrees of
Bureaucratic Density
a. The Principle
The bureaucratic density of an agromanagerial society varies with
its hydraulic density. This correlation is affected by such factors as
the institutional weight of large nonhydraulic constructions (the
Zuni Pueblos, the territorial states of Chou China, the Roman em-
pire) and the dimensions of communicational and/or military or-
ganizations (Assyria, the state of Ch'in, Aztec Mexico). But such
factors modify rather than negate the basic hydraulic-bureaucratic
relation. Pharaonic Egypt was highly bureaucratized long before it
developed a comprehensive military officialdom. And while both the
Incas and the Aztecs maintained strong military organizations, there
c. For a discussion of the varying territorial dimensions and character, as well as
the interarea relations, in the "loose" hydraulic order of traditional China, see
Wittfogel, 1931: 252-72.
l68 CORE, MARGIN, AND SUBMARGIN
can be little doubt that the former had a more comprehensive
managerial bureaucracy than the latter.
On the acquisitive level correlations also vary. To be sure, an
agrarian despotism, no matter what its hydraulic density pattern,
insists upon its right to tax universally. Yet the way in which this
right is exercised differs significantly. Although a loose hydraulic
society with a strong government may be able to gather in a larger
percentage of the estimated revenue than a compact hydraulic society
with a weak government, other conditions being equal, the more
comprehensive bureaucracy of an intensively managerial state is
better equipped over time to handle the business of taxation than is
the less comprehensive bureaucracy of a less intensively managerial
state.
The collecting of the rural surplus was more centralized in Inca
Peru than in Aztec Mexico, where local affairs were handled not by
representatives of the government but by heads of the local calpulli.
In the compact hydraulic societies of the ancient Near East the bulk
of the revenue seems to have been gathered by government func-
tionaries, although intermediaries are known to have been used in
certain periods in Pharaonic Egypt.9 Under Greek and Roman in-
fluence respectively, tax farming appeared in the Hellenistic and
Roman Near East; 10 but the absolutist regimes soon asserted their
power, first by modifying the system of tax farming and later by
reducing it to insignificance.11 State-appointed (liturgical) tax col-
lectors, mostly wealthy townsmen, supplemented the fiscal bureauc-
racy; and big (bureaucratic) landowners fulfilled a similar function
with more advantage as well as less danger to themselves.12 Thus
the hydraulically loose Roman empire discarded the independent
tax farmers of ancient Greece and republican Rome without revert-
ing to the old Egyptian and Babylonian ways of directly and bureau-
cratically collecting the revenue.
This step was taken by the Arab masters of the Near East, whose
power was rooted in such hydraulic centers as Damascus, Cairo, and
Baghdad. Under the Umayyads the bureaucratic fiscal system pre-
vailed; and the tax farmers, whom the Abbassid government began
to employ, were still closely integrated in the bureaucratic order. In
Mesopotamia they were part of the officialdom.13 In China some local
tax collectors were not members of the regular officialdom; 14 but
bureaucratic methods of tax collection seem to have prevailed
throughout the ages.
CHAPTER 6, B 169
b. Changing Bureaucratic Density of a Hydraulic Territory
The inclusion of incipiently hydraulic or nonhydraulic territories
in a loose hydraulic society is usually followed by the development
of a bureaucratic network in these territories. This is what happened
when the ancient centers of Chinese culture conquered certain "bar-
barian" regions in Central and South China.
The inclusion of a compact hydraulic territory in a hydraulically
loose empire tends to have the opposite effect. The rulers, who are
accustomed to operate with a less compact officialdom, may also
reduce the bureaucratic apparatus of the hydraulically compact
area. This is what happened when the Nile Valley became part of
the Roman empire.
7. Hydraulically Concerned and Hydraulically
Unconcerned Masters of Hydraulic Society
A second factor that may change the bureaucratic density of a
hydraulic society is the rulers' concern (or lack of concern) for hy-
draulic management. As discussed previously, a hydraulic society may
sink to a low rationality level if it is ruled by conquerors who take
little interest in managerial agriculture or if its indigenous masters
slacken their productive efforts. The conquerors' lack of hydraulic
concern is usually a consequence of their nonhydraulic background.
Internal decay may be due to a reduction in government revenue
resulting from the excessive growth of proprietary forces or from the
degeneration of a ruling group that reveled in the luxury of total
power.
The spatial relation between the main areas of political power
and hydraulic economy also plays a part. Rulers may establish their
capital close to the major regions of agricultural wealth and sur-
plus; or they may establish it at a considerable distance from these
regions. Defense is often given as the reason for the latter decision,
and at times it may indeed be the whole reason. Often, however, the
rulers — particularly conqueror-rulers — preferred to set up their capi-
tals in a nonhydraulic frontier, because they had a stronger affinity
to the periphery than to the core areas of the hydraulic world.
In China the centers of political direction and hydraulic economy
coincided more or less until the first millennium a.d., when the
growing fertility of the Yangtze area conflicted with the defense
needs of the vital northern border zone. From then on, the seat of
the central government shifted back and forth; but the northern
region never ceased to be hydraulic to some extent, and the northern
170 CORE, MARGIN, AND SUBMARGIN
capitals were ingeniously and hydraulically connected with the main
rice areas of Central China through the Grand Canal.
In India the great northern plain, which was the main area of
hydraulic agriculture, was also the logical place for the political
metropolis; and the Muslim masters of India, like their Hindu
predecessors, established their capitals there. But they exhibited less
hydraulic concern than had the previous indigenous rulers. Although
they were not lacking in managerial interest, and although they
created and maintained large irrigation works, they never fully
restored the grandiose hydraulic economy that appears to have
flourished in the Maurya empire. The role they assigned to local
"chiefs" and tax farmers reflects the relatively low bureaucratic
density of Muslim India.
The later Roman emperors responded to the lure of the East.
Yet they established their new capital, not in one of the great classical
areas of hydraulic agriculture (Egypt, Syria, or Mesopotamia) but at
the Hellespont, the classical divide between the Orient and the non-
hydraulic West. And despite the fact that long acquaintance with
managerial despotism stimulated them to plan and build on a large
scale, they were content to administer their hydraulic possessions
from afar. Immensely bold in the creation of nonhydraulic con-
structions (highways and frontier walls), they exhibited much less
initiative in the agromanagerial sphere. While by no means lacking
in hydraulic concern, they aimed at gathering as large a rural
revenue as possible with as small a bureaucracy as possible. Rational
rulers though they were, they did not realize the rationality maxi-
mum of the hydraulic world they controlled.
The Romans, who made Constantinople the capital of their em-
pire, had behind them five hundred years of practical experience
with the Hellenistic version of hydraulic statecraft. The Turks, who
had conquered Adrianople in 1361, Constantinople in 1453, Egypt
in 1517, and Mesopotamia in 1534, were not unacquainted with
higher agrarian civilizations of the hydraulic type either; as a
matter of fact, they had lived at the edge of the hydraulic world since
the dawn of history. But perhaps because of their pastoral back-
ground they were less interested in the promotion of agriculture 18
than in military enterprises; and they preferred extending the non-
hydraulic margin to intensifying the hydraulic core. True, the great
irrigation works of Mesopotamia lay in ruins when the Turks came;
but the history of China and India shows that hydraulic effort can
restore quickly what antihydraulic action has destroyed. The Turks
did not break with agromanagerial tradition in Egypt or Syria; but
they furthered no significant reconstruction work in Iraq. Speaking
CHAPTER 6, B 171
generally, they displayed no effective zest for hydraulic develop-
ment.16 As Orientally despotic organizers of war, peace, and fiscal
exploitation, they were extraordinarily successful; and in some few
major administrative centers they employed many officials. Being
managerially unconcerned, however, they governed their far-flung
empire with a relatively small professional bureaucracy.
8. Periods of Agromanagerial Adjustment,
Degeneration, and Restoration
Of course, the economic ethos (the Wirtschaftsgesinnung) of a
ruling group is not unchangeable. Great differences in cultural and
social assimilation notwithstanding, this is true also for pastoral
invaders.
The tribal conquerors of China were usually willing to uphold
the indigenous tradition in certain spheres of nonhydraulic con-
struction and management; and many of them became at least super-
ficially aware of the importance of irrigation agriculture. Perhaps
none of the northern conquerors equaled the active hydraulic con-
cern of the Manchus, who had practiced irrigation in their homeland
prior to their conquest of China.17 In the Near East the Umayyads,
who consolidated a conquest regime established by the first followers
of the Prophet, also showed extraordinary hydraulic concern.18
Pastoral and semipastoral conquerors who develop an interest in
hydraulic matters do so, as a rule, not during the first period of their
dominion but later; and often they grow managerially lazy and
negligent before their rationality potential has been exhausted. In-
digenous rulers, on the other hand, frequently show the greatest
hydraulic concern during the earlier periods of their regime, tending
to grow managerially less insistent when their power is consolidated.
In either case, decay may be retarded by challenging external cir-
cumstances; or it may be accelerated by the expansion of large
proprietary forces, whose representatives arrogate to themselves an
increasing part of the national surplus.1* When one segment of the
despotic elite (primarily the court and clusters of officials close
to it) succumbs to the corrupting influence of total power, another
segment (other members of the officialdom and their relatives and
friends among the bureaucratic "gentry") may seize power. As the
result of this process, excessively irrational features may be eliminated
in a "cathartic" and "regenerative" revolution.
d. For an attempt to explain the great agrarian and political crises in Chinese
society by means of this and other social factors see Wittfogel, 1927: 322 ft., 328 ff.;
ibid., 1935: 53. Cf. Wittfogel and Feng, 1949: 377. For an analysis of agrarian crises
as a general feature of Oriental society see Wittfogel, 1938: 109 ff.
17« CORE, MARGIN, AND SUBMARGIN
A development of this type does not change the traditional hy-
draulic and despotic order; it merely restores its vitality. The first
rulers of many Egyptian, Babylonian, Chinese, Indian, Persian,
Islamic, and Mexican dynasties have been praised for their vigor
and efficiency. Regenerative upsurges may also occur during a later
phase of a dynastic reign; and then, as during the formative period,
serious attempts may be made at effective hydraulic management
and rational fiscal administration. In both cases the more far-
sighted and less compromised elements within the ruling bureauc-
racy demonstrate that they can run the country in a more effective
way than their self-indulgent and "corrupt" rivals.
9. The Staying Power of Deteriorated Agro-
managerial hydraulic societies
The dominant myths of Oriental despotism ascribe regenerative
achievements to almost every founder of a new dynasty; but an un-
biased evaluation of the evidence leads to less flattering conclusions.
Under conditions that permit no independent criticism or political
pressure, the immediate benefits of total power have a much greater
appeal to the masters of the absolutist apparatus than do the
potential fruits of rational— albeit, selfishly rational — managerial
effort. Self-indulgence is, therefore, a more typical motive for be-
havior than the desire to maintain the rulers' rationality optimum.
And this is true not only for most later sovereigns but also for
many a dynasty's founding father. Such persons, however vigorous,
are often more sensitive to the political weaknesses of the old regime
than to the managerial possibilities of the new. Having won over the
bulk of the military and civil officials, they readily correct the most
glaring abuses in taxation, forced labor, or jurisdiction, and they
make the most urgent constructional and agromanagerial improve-
ments; but they have neither the vision nor the personnel to raise
the hydraulic government to a conspicuously higher level of hydrau-
lic and fiscal management. In the many dynastic changes that charac-
terize the history of agromanagerial civilizations, thorough re-
generative upsurges are probably more the exception than the rule.
Of course, a stoppage of all hydraulic operations would paralyze
agricultural life, and this not only in areas of full aridity but in
many semi-arid regions as well. Consequently, even a hydraulically
unconcerned Oriental government will devote some effort to its
managerial duties. It has to carry on somehow, even if it must depend
largely and not too rationally on local groups. During the last phase
of Byzantine rule over Egypt, influential landlords, most of whom
CHAPTER 6, C 173
had bureaucratic connections,19 are said to have maintained the
dikes and canals in many localities.20 To what extent governmental
hydraulic action was reduced by this arrangement is hard to decide.
Even during this critical period, however, Egypt's irrigation economy
was sufficiently continuous and sufficiently effective to feed the people
and to furnish a huge revenue. Somehow it succeeded in perpetuating
itself. When the Arabs appeared in 639, they found in the Nile
Valley a population of about seven millions,6 that is, about as many
persons as had lived there under Ptolemaic rule.
C. THE MARGIN OF THE HYDRAULIC WORLD
In arid or semi-arid landscapes sedentary agrarian civilizations can
persist permanently and prosperously only on the basis of a hydraulic
economy. Along the moderately humid periphery of the arid and
semi-arid world agrarian life is not so conditioned. Here Oriental
despotism may prevail with little or no dependence upon hydraulic
activities.
1. Varying Operational and Bureaucratic Density
Patterns in Marginal Areas of the Hydraulic
World
In the hydraulic core areas degrees of hydraulic density provide a
crucial means for distinguishing degrees of institutional density. In
the margins, however, this criterion loses its significance. Instead,
degrees of bureaucratic density are best determined by an approach
that evaluates the relative development of absolutist methods in the
spheres of construction (mostly nonhydraulic), organization, and
acquisition.
Comparison between the states of Middle Byzantium and post-
Mongol Russia reveal significant differences. Byzantium maintained
considerable hydraulic installations, in the main for providing drink-
ing water; * and these have no parallel in Muscovite Russia. Nor
did the Muscovite Russians engage in comprehensive nonhydraulic
constructions as did the Byzantines. The founders of Eastern Rome
reshaped the earlier network of roads; * and their highways were
the foundation of the Byzantine system of communications,2 which
in a limited way continued in use even under the Turks.3
e. For the beginning of the Arab era see Johnson and West, 1949: 263 (6,000,000,
plus children and old people); cf. Munier, 1932: 84. For Ptolemaic Egypt see
Diodorus, I, sec. 31 (7,000,000); cf. Josephus, JW 2.16 (7,500,000); Wilcken, 1899, I: 489 ff.
a. Br^hier, 1950: 90 ff. For a description of some of these works see Ritter, 1858:
155, 160, 167, 202, 346, 378, 406, 496, 547. Most of the local and regional hydraulic
works that existed under the Turks probably go back to the Byzantines.
174 CORE, MARGIN, AND SUBMARGIN
The Byzantines also made enormous building efforts for purposes
of defense. They protected their borders by a great chain of fortifica-
tions; and here, as in the sphere of communications, corvee labor
was mobilized for the task.* After the victory of the Seljuq Turks
at Manzikert (in 1071), the absolutist state still functioned; and the
road corvee was still levied in the 12th century; 5 but the vigor of the
early days was gone. The great military road, which in the preceding
years had had its periods of decay and reconstruction, appears to
have been properly maintained only "until the eleventh century." 6
When the Mongols established their rule over Russia, they did
not construct massive roads, nor did they erect frontier walls or
chains of border fortresses. They were satisfied to establish organiza-
tional and acquisitive methods of total control. It is in these two
last fields of action that Byzantium and absolutist Russia, although
not identical, were similar.
The Byzantines kept account of their country's wealth in elaborate
cadasters.7 They monopolized quick communication and intelligence
by means of the state post.8 They closely controlled the major sectors
of handicraft and commerce, again until the 1 1 th century.9 And they
maintained armies whose orderly integration contrasted strikingly
with the amorphous hosts of feudal Europe.10
All these features have parallels in Muscovite Russia. The mature
Muscovite state registered the mass of its population for fiscal and
military purposes; " it operated an elaborate "postal" (relay) sys-
tem; 12 it occupied a key position in the country's trade; 13 and it
despotically drafted and directed its fighting men."
During the earlier periods of both absolutist regimes office land
was assigned to persons serving the state. In Byzantium this system
emerged on the eve of the Arab conquest in a time of turmoil and
invasion and as a means of strengthening defense against the Persian
attack. Rooted in earlier Roman institutions 14 and set in its classi-
cal form by Heraclius I (610-641), it continued patterns that had
existed in the ancient Orient from the days of Sumer and Babylon
and that prevailed also in contemporary Persia.18 Under the system
of themes, each Byzantine soldier received a farm which, like his
service, was hereditary and indivisible.16
This plebeian version of an absolutist office land system lasted
until the 1 1 th century. Then, after the catastrophic defeat at Manzi-
b. For the principle see Herberstein, NR, I: 95 ff.; for its full development, Staden,
1930: 58; cf. Kluchevsky, HR, II: 48, in, 115. As will be shown below, all these in-
stitutions existed before Ivan III (1462-1505), during whose reign the Tatar Yoke
collapsed.
CHAPTER 6, C l^tj
kert, the state placed at the -center of its reorganized military (and
office land) system the big landowners, who, with the development
of a heavy cavalry, were more useful militarily than the themes
peasants."
Hand in hand with this transformation went the transformation of
the acquisitive order. From the 7th to the 1 1 th century the govern-
ment collected the bulk of its revenue through its officials. The
themes soldiers, who lived essentially off their service land, presented
no major fiscal problem.'* The holders of the pronoia, the larger land
units that constituted the core of the later office land system, pro-
vided a certain number of heavily armed soldiers and collected taxes
from the peasants of the pronoia.17 Together with the newly estab-
lished tax farmers,18 the pronoetes formed a group of semi-official
tax collectors, who were less directly controlled by the state than
were the members of the regular fiscal bureaucracy.
The corresponding Russian development has certain distinct
features. The Muscovite holders of office land, the pomeshchiki, in-
sofar as they rendered military service, were from the beginning and
in the main heavily armed horsemen, and because of the greater
burden of their equipment they were usually assigned estates larger
than a peasant farmstead. Within their pomestye they collected taxes
from their peasants. Consequently their government, like the govern-
ment of later Byzantium, gathered only a part of its revenue through
professional fiscal officials.
Both regimes employed despotic methods of government in the
organizational and acquisitive fields. In the constructional field such
methods were used to a major degree only by Byzantium, and there
essentially during the middle period (until the 11th century). The
shrinking range of constructional operations in post-Manzikert
Byzantium was interestingly paralleled by the shrinking range of its
fiscal bureaucracy. In Muscovite Russia constructional activities
were irrelevant from the start; and the fiscal system was, also from
the start, characterized by a large nonbureaucratic sector.
Thus a positive correlation between operational and bureaucratic
density can be formulated for the margin as well as for the core
areas of hydraulic society. This correlation may be influenced by
other factors, and strongly so. But experience bears out what the-
oretical considerations suggest: Other conditions being equal, the
c. Cf. Ostrogorsky, 1940: 262. Ostrogorsky describes the military difference between
the two groups, which I correlate here with the two types of office land.
d. Ostrogorsky, 1940: 58. According to the Tactica Leonis 20.71, they seem to have
paid some minor imposts (ibid.: 48).
176 CORE, MARGIN, AND SUBMARGIN
density of the despotic bureaucracy tends to increase or decrease
with the increase or decrease of its functions.
2, The Growth of Proprietary Forces
In Byzantium and pOst-Mongol Russia the state controlled the bulk
of the land either fiscally or administratively, a large part of it being
assigned as office land to the soldiers of the themes, the pronoetes,
or to the pomeshchiki. Socially and economically, the pronoia holders
were more powerful than the plebian peasant warriors of the themes;
but they bore a closer resemblance to the Russian pomeshchiki than
to the feudal lords of Western Europe. Both the pronoetes and
pomeshchiki delivered part of their rural revenue to the state. Both
owed absolute obedience to their respective governments. And both
lacked the decisive capacity of feudal and postfeudal landlordism —
the capacity to organize independent nationwide political corpora-
tions (estates, stdnde).
However, these conditions did not prevail unaltered. They existed
in Late Byzantium up to 1204, the year in which the completely
defeated empire was replaced by the Latin Empire; and they under-
went a great change in the final period of Byzantium, which ended
in 1453. In Russia they existed up to 1762, the year in which the
former pomestye land became the private property of its holders.
In later Byzantium and in post-Muscovite Russia private property
and enterprise gained considerable strength. In view of this fact
we may ask first, is such a development typical of agrarian des-
potisms and second, to what degree was the growth of proprietary
forces responsible for the societal changes that occurred in Byzantium
from 1261 to 1453 and in Russia from 1861 to 1917?
In Byzantium big landownership was an important factor even
before 1071; but its significance increased greatly when, at the end
of the 11th and at the beginning of the 12th century, the landlord-
pronoetes were given additional economic and judicial power. After
the fall of the Latin Empire, the pronoetes, who formerly had held
their grants for a limited time only, achieved the "hereditary and
unrestricted ownership" of their lands. And they also obtained tax
exemptions far greater than anything that had been customary.19 The
corresponding shrinkage in the government revenue was a decisive
factor in the weakening of the Byzantine empire, which eventually
was unable to resist the Turks.
In Tsarist Russia events took a different course. Here industrializa-
tion made substantial advances in the 18th and particularly in the
19th century; and this development was closely related to the growth
CHAPTER 6, C I77
of private property, first immobile (land) and ultimately also mobile
(capital).
3. The Institutional Staying Power of Marginal
Oriental Despotism
But the growth of proprietary forces did not bring about a trans-
formation in Byzantine society like that achieved in Western Europe.
Nor did it, prior to 1917, enable the Russian men of property to pre-
vail over the men of the state apparatus. Why not? Were the bene-
ficiaries of total power fully aware of the issue involved? And did
they aim at isolating and crippling the representatives of property?
It is easy to juxtapose neatly separated camps. The real conditions,
however, were much more complicated. In Byzantium, in Tsarist
Russia, and in most other Orientally despotic countries the men of
the apparatus were frequently also men of property. Consequently
the conflict between the interests of the absolutist regime and the
interests of private property and enterprise appear also — and often
primarily — as a conflict between different members of the same rul-
ing class or even as a conflict between different interests of individual
members of this class. Why do such persons — as a group and over
time — place their bureaucratic above their proprietary interests?
a. Bureaucratic Interests Favoring the Reproduction of the
Despotic Order
The civil or military official of an agrarian despotism is part of a
bureaucratic hierarchy, which, taken in its entirety, enjoys more
power, revenue, and prestige than any other group in the society.
Of course, the post he holds today and the one he hopes to hold
tomorrow carry with them the risk of total destruction; and he is
therefore never safe. However, under the shadow of total power the
man of property is never safe either; and the dangers of his position
are not outweighed by satisfactions derived from active participation
in the gambles and privileges of total power. Thus, not even the
members of the bureaucratic class who hold no office challenge the
principles of the absolutist regime, which they may rejoin tomorrow.
And the officiating members of this class, confronted with the- Big
Conflict, aggressively uphold the privileges of bureaucratic power,
revenue, and prestige which they are enjoying now.
Narrow and oversimplified interpretation has obscured the issue
by formulating it only in terms of the interests of a single person,
the autocratic ruler. To be sure, the despot is eager to perpetuate
his absolute power, but, lacking an effective governmental apparatus,
178 CORE, MARGIN, AND SUBMARCIN
he cannot achieve this aim. The kings of Medieval Europe found
absolutist power as sweet as did their Byzantine confreres. But the
latter succeeded where the former failed, because the integrated
Byzantine bureaucracy upheld the system of total power that favored
both the sovereign and the men of the apparatus, whereas the
enfeoffed vassals of the Western kings safeguarded and reproduced
their privileges by keeping the king's power fragmented and checked.
To what extent can the prominence of the army in certain agro-
managerial countries be taken as a sign of feudal decentralization?
Military officials are as much men of the state apparatus as are their
civil opposites; and if the first centuries of the Roman empire
demonstrate anything, it is exactly this. For it was just when military
leadership was prominent that Roman absolutism attained its matu-
rity. The crystallization of despotic power in Muscovite Russia in-
volved considerable bureaucratic activity; but the overwhelming
majority of the new serving men wielded the sword and not the pen.
The fact that in later Byzantium the heads of the military sector of
the state apparatus figured prominently also as political leaders re-
flects the increasing pressure of foreign aggression. But it does not
mean that these individuals served their government in a limited
and conditional way as members of a baronial and feudal class.
b. Late Byzantium: Marasmus rather than Creative
Transformation
We must remember all this when we try to evaluate the effect of
big property on the society of later Byzantium. Landed property in-
creased during the first centuries of the Middle Empire; yet state
protection of peasant holdings and periodic confiscations of large
estates20 notably retarded this development. After 1071, controls
grew looser, but the state still had a rein on the country's rural
economy. Contrary to corresponding developments in feudal Europe,
conversion of the cadaster from a public to a private institution
"never occurred in the East." 21 And the pronoetes, however they
may have benefited personally, had to deliver a large part of the
taxes they collected to the government.22
After the interlude of the Latin Empire, the state of Byzantium
never regained its earlier authority. The landowners were now strong
enough to withhold a much greater proportion of the national sur-
plus than they had done previously, but they did not consolidate
their ranks. Neither the great landowners nor the representatives of
mobile urban wealth established nationwide corporations: estates.
Private property became big; but it remained politically unor-
CHAPTER 6, C 179
ganized. Contrary to corresponding developments in the West, the
growth of big private property in Byzantium did not give birth to a
new society. It succeeded only in weakening and paralyzing the old
one.
c. The Extraordinary Staying Power of Tsarist Bureaucracy
After 1204 the Latin Empire temporarily replaced the traditional
despotic regime. Could it be that the quasifeudal institutions of this
empire (and of the Western enemies of Constantinople in general)
influenced the bureaucratic absolutism of Byzantium so seriously
that it was never able to regain its former superiority? In other words,
did the rural and urban proprietors succeed in paralyzing the
Byzantine government in the last centuries only because external
forces broke the backbone of despotic power?
In terms of the fundamental issue the experiences of Tsarist
Russia are eminently instructive. Post-Mongol Russia was invaded
several times; but prior to the democratic revolution of 1917 the
absolutist government was never completely broken. Russia's in-
dustrialization was strongly stimulated by Western developments.
Foreign money flowed into private (capitalist) enterprises, increasing
the weight of the proprietary sector. And Western methods and
ideas notably affected Russian thought and performance. But all
these external influences did not destroy the absolutist character of
the state. The relation of the Tsarist bureaucracy to the forces of
property — and eventually also to labor — continued to be determined
by conditions that had long been operative in traditional Russian
society. And this relation was, and remained, a relation of absolute
bureaucratic superiority.
The masters of the despotic state apparatus responded to the
changing historical situation with changing attitudes, but until 1917
they did not relinquish their total power. When in the early 18th
century it became obvious that industrialization was vital for the
country's defense, the Tsarist government was not satisfied with
supervising and regulating the new industries, as the absolutist
governments of Western Europe were doing. Instead, it directly
managed the bulk of the heavy industry and, in addition also, part
of the light industry/ probably employing for these purposes the
e. In 1743 the state had some 63,000 male "souls" ascribed to its (Ural) Mountain
Works and 87,000 "souls" to its potash works (Mavor, 1925, I: 441), plus an un-
known number of individuals who labored outside of these two main spheres of
government production, whereas private workshops and factories occupied some 30,000
(ascribed) male "souls" (ibid.: 493). Under Elizabeth (1741-62) the sector of state-
l8o CORE, MARGIN, AND SUBMARGIN
majority of all industrial workers in the form of ascribed labor/
The machine age posed many new problems both in the agrarian
and in the industrial spheres of life. The ruling bureaucracy solved
them — clumsily, no doubt, but successfully insofar as the preserva-
tion of its hegemony was concerned. The Tsarist regime emanci-
pated the serfs, but it maintained a tight control over the villages,
which were administered in a quasi-Oriental manner. During the
last decades of the 19th century the Russian government, by direct
and indirect taxes, seems to have taken from the peasants almost
the whole of their agricultural produce proper — almost 50 per cent
of the entire peasant income.28 And the same bureaucracy, which so
effectively upheld its acquisitive interests, was perfectly willing to let
the landed aristocracy lose a large part of its estates. Between 1861
and 1914 the land owned by this group shrank by over 40 per cent.24
And Stolypin's reform program of 1906 showed the absolutist
officialdom considerably more interested in creating a class of strong
peasant owners than in protecting the landed prerogatives of its
proprietary wing.
In the nonagrarian sector of economy the adjustments were simi-
larly ingenious. The government encouraged private capitalist enter-
prise in industry and commerce and — to a lesser extent — also in
communications and banking. But at the beginning of the 20th
century it managed the bulk of the country's railroads; it maintained
fiscal control over the comprehensive "monopoly" industries, and it
occupied a key position in foreign investments. By means of state
guarantees it influenced something like a third of the nonmonop-
olized light industry, and in 1914 no less than 90 per cent of the
core of heavy industry, mining.25
These data indicate the strategic position that the Tsarist regime
occupied in the economy of Russia at the beginning of the 20th
century. In conformity with the majority of other analysts, the
prominent Soviet economist, Lyashchenko, notes that the Russian
banking system prior to the revolution "differed materially from the
managed industry temporarily shrank (ibid.: 440 ft.), but it rose again impressively
during the later part of the century. The fourth census reports that for 1781-83 there
were about a 10,000 "souls" ascribed to the state-owned Mountain Works and 54,000
"souls" to private units (ibid.: 441). The somewhat less complete report of the
Manufactures Collegium noted for 1780, 51,000 ascribed "souls" for the private
Mountain Works and about 24,000 ascribed "souls" outside the key region of Russian
industry, the "Mountains" (ibid.: 493).
/. Heavy industry formed the core of the state works, and until "the beginning
of the nineteenth century, the iron mines and smelting works were manned ex-
clusively by forced labor" (Mavor, 1925, I: 534).
CHAPTER 6, C l8l
banking system of the Western capitalist countries. . . . The state
bank was the central bank of the entire Russian credit system," and
the director of the credit department of the treasury "controlled the
entire financial apparatus of the country." 26
There is no need to rest the evaluation of Russia's societal order
on the single criterion of financial control; but it certainly is worth
noting that one bureau of the Tsarist state apparatus did control
the country's entire financial system. Considering the role of the
Tsarist bureaucracy in rural and urban society, it is difficult to
avoid the decision that even at the beginning of the 20th century
the men of the state apparatus were stronger than society.27
d. Ottoman Turkey
The later development of Ottoman Turkey combines features of
the Byzantine and the Russian patterns. The Turkish empire re-
sembled Byzantium, with whose territory it was largely congruent,
in that it also originally controlled classical areas of hydraulic
economy; and it resembled Tsarist Russia in that it was also deeply
influenced by the industrial society of modern Europe. It differed
from Byzantium in that the loss of its hydraulic provinces virtually
coincided with the decline of its political prominence; and it differed
from Russia in that the growing economic and cultural influence of
the industrial West was accompanied, and partly preceded, by a
successful encroachment upon Turkey's sovereignty.
e. Diversified Final Evolutions
In all three countries outside aggression was a crucial factor in the
weakening of the despotic regime; and this indirectly confirms the
staying power of the Orientally despotic order.
In the case of Byzantium, it is not entirely clear whether the final
marasmus of the despotic regime was caused primarily by external
or internal factors — that is, by the conquest of 1204 or by the ex-
cessive growth of landlordism. It is clear, however, that the growing
proprietary forces did not dissociate themselves sharply and creatively
from the decaying state. The impact of the West was sufficiently
strong to paralyze the traditional despotic government, but it was
not strong enough to pave the way for the growth of a new balanced
and property-based (capitalist) society.
In the case of Russia, bureaucratic absolutism suffered a mortal
blow from outside only in 1917. Prior to this date a marginal
Oriental despotism adjusted itself successfully to the conditions of
l82 CORE, MARGIN, AND SUBMARGIN
an advancing industrialization. The Tsarist government made more
and more concessions to mobile and immobile property; and during
the last period of its existence it even permitted a number of politi-
cal organizations to operate on a national scale.28 But these develop-
ments notwithstanding, the bureaucratic regime perpetuated itself
until the beginning of the year 1917.
In the case of Turkey, foreign powers broke the backbone of
Ottoman independence in a series of wars; and although Russia
participated in the military defeat of Turkey, Western European
influence prevailed in the ensuing transformation. It was under
Western European influence that Turkey undertook important con-
stitutional reforms. Due to the lesser significance of independent
proprietary developments both in land and capital, the Turkish
reforms were at first even more superficial than the reforms accom-
plished in the Tsarist empire, and this despite the fact that a first
parliament was established in Turkey as early as 1876/7. But the
weakness of the independent internal forces was to some degree
compensated for by the increasing decay of the traditional state
apparatus, which finally collapsed after the defeats suffered in the
Second Balkan War and in World War I.
4. Marginal Agrarian Despotisms Containing
Conspicuous Hydraulic Elements
Among marginal agrarian despotisms Muscovite Russia and Middle
Byzantium, which exhibit numerous cultural similarities, share one
trait that is particularly relevant to our inquiry: in neither civiliza-
tion did agrohydraulic operations play a significant role. On the
other hand, Liao and Maya society, which culturally had little in
common, are alike in that hydraulic features were clearly apparent
in both of them.
a. The Liao Empire
The Liao empire deserves special attention for a number of reasons.
It is one of the few Far Eastern societies of conquest in which "bar-
barian" (pastoral) conquerors — in this case, the Ch'i-tan — ruled over
part of China without shifting their political center from their Inner
Asiatic grazing grounds to the subdued (North) Chinese territories.
Liao is the first of the four great historical Chinese dynasties of
conquest, the three others being Chin (ruled by the Jurchen), Yuan
(ruled by the Mongols), and Ch'ing (ruled by the Manchus). Liao in-
stitutions therefore have significant parallels in the Chin, Yuan, and
CHAPTER 6, C 183
Ch'ing dynasties, and it would seem also in other dynasties of con-
quest and infiltration in China and elsewhere.47
During the two hundred years of their rule, the Ch'i-tan acquired
no real understanding of the potentialities of hydraulic agriculture.
Instead, and not dissimilar to other mounted "barbarians," they
eyed with suspicion the irrigated fields which impeded the free
sweep of their cavalry.20 The greater part of their agrarian territories,
however, had a long hydraulic tradition. Canals had been dug and
rivers diked prior to the establishment of Liao power in North China
and Manchuria; 30 and the Ch'i-tan conquerors seem to have been
perfectly willing to preserve this hydraulic heritage. When a flood
inundated thirty villages in present Hopei, "an imperial decree
ordered the old canals dredged"; 31 and when in 1074 excessive rains
threatened the population of the Liao River basin, "the northern
chancellor [ordered] large-scale mobilization of the able-bodied men
along the river in order to complete the river dikes." An experienced
official warned that such "large-scale works" would not be advan-
tageous at this moment and he asked that the labor corvee be
stopped. "The imperial court approved it and discontinued the
work." Subsequent events indicated both the soundness of the
official's warning — the river caused no calamity — and the dimension
and weight of the hydraulic corvee: "Along the shores of the river
for a thousand li there was not a person who was not highly
pleased." 32
The Liao government was equally well equipped — and consider-
ably less reluctant — to employ its manpower for nonhydraulic con-
structions. Highways were maintained and repaired 33 — once with
a huge corvee of two hundred thousand men; 3* chains of fortifica-
tions were erected along the frontier; 35 and two new capitals and
many palaces, temples, and tombs were built north of the old seats
of Chinese culture.36 Literary descriptions and archaeological finds
make it clear that the Liao labor service was as effective from the
standpoint of the rulers as it was onerous from the standpoint of the
people.37
Being great builders, the Liao rulers were also great organizers.
Their offices registered the population for purposes of taxation, labor
service, and military recruitment.38 Their postal system was both
elaborate and fast.39 And their army was a well-coordinated fighting
g. This study was facilitated by the fact that the Chinese subjects of Liao, being
trained in historiography, recorded the institutions of Liao society more fully than
the scribes of most other conquest societies of Asia that were dominated by pastoral
rulers. The reasons for this phenomenon are discussed in Wittfogel, 1949: passim.
184 CORE, MARGIN, AND SUBMARGIN
machine. We have reason to believe that Chingis Khan shaped his
own terrifying military organization after the Liao pattern.40
These constructional and organizational developments were sup-
plemented by genuinely hydraulic methods of acquisition. True,
some "entrusted" territories delivered only their wine tax to the
central government; 41 but these regions comprised a mere fraction
of the realm; 42 and eventually most of them came under full gov-
ernment control.43 In the great majority of all administrative sub-
divisions the state insisted on its subjects paying taxes,44 just as it
insisted on their rendering labor and military services. Powerful fam-
ilies and monasteries sought to have households living on their land
struck from the public registers, but evidently the state made no con-
cessions in its claim to tax them.45
The final crisis of Liao power has all the earmarks of a dynastic
crisis under a typical agrarian despotism. Here, as in similar circum-
stances, the landowners increased their acquisitive 46 but not their or-
ganizational strength. The collapse of the dynasty led to no property-
based industrial order. Instead it led to the restoration and rejuvena-
tion of the old agromanagerial society.
b. Maya Society
Maya civilization presents ecological and cultural features that in
several ways are unique. But these "unique" features overlay con-
structional, organizational, and acquisitive conditions remarkably
similar to those of other marginal agromanagerial societies.
The ancient Maya were spread over a wide area, which comprised
the greater part of present Guatemala, the western part of the Re-
public of Honduras, all of British Honduras, and Yucatan. Like most
of Central America this area has a sharply divided rain year. From
May to October precipitation is heavy, while during the remaining
period there is little rain. This dichotomy encouraged elaborate hy-
draulic developments in territories that border the Lake of Mexico
and also in several highland regions further to the south, the Maya-
inhabited zones of Guatemala and Honduras among them. However,
in large sections of the Maya area geological peculiarities decisively
shaped and limited hydraulic enterprise. Almost the entire lowland
plain of Yucatan and a great part of the hill zone between this plain
and the highlands are composed of an extremely porous mineral:
limestone; consequently precipitation quickly sinks below an easily
accessible level.
A landscape which precludes the formation of rivers and lakes is of
course entirely unsuitable for irrigation agriculture. Worse. The lack
CHAPTER 6, C 185
of natural storage places for drinking water, other than some well-
like waterholes, presents a serious obstacle for any permanent or pop-
ulous settlements. Persons desirous of establishing such settlements
would therefore have to make concerted efforts not for purposes of
irrigation but for the gathering and preservation of drinking water.
As a result of such efforts we can expect to find hydraulic installa-
tions that play only a minor role in other agrarian societies.
When, in 1519, Cortez briefly visited Yucatan, he noted wells (po-
zos) and water reservoirs (albercas) in the residential compounds of
the "nobles." *7 And in 1566 Landa, in the first systematic description
of Maya civilization, stressed both the unique water difficulties of
the area and the way in which moisture was provided "in part by
industry and in part by nature." 48 It is significant that Landa, like
the authors of the Relaciones de Yucatan,11 places the man-made de-
vices for providing water first.
The installations for providing drinking water were (1) artificial
wells (pozos or cenotes in the primary sense of the Maya word),49 (2)
cisterns (chultuns), and (3) man-made large reservoirs (aguadas).
The Relaciones report artificial pozos everywhere in the lowland; 50
and the early observers fully understood the difficulties of digging
and maintaining good wells without the aid of metal tools.51 Even
after the introduction of iron implements, the maintenance and use
of the man-made wells often required ingenious communal action.52
In some cases the methods employed were intricate "past belief," 53
involving the active participation of "the population of a city." 54
But important as the cenotes were, they did not as a rule provide
water for large populations. Says Casares, a modern Yucatan engi-
neer: "If we were to depend on the wells only for the supply of
water, the greater part of our peninsula could not be inhabited." 55
This being so, the cisterns and aguadas of Yucatan become crucially
significant.
Bottle-shaped subterranean constructions with circular openings,
chultuns, have been discovered in several places. At Uxmal, Stephens
noticed "so many of them, and in places where they were so little
to be expected, that they made rambling out of the cleared paths
dangerous, and to the last day of our visit we were constantly finding
new ones." 56 These constructions seem to have provided "immense
reservoirs for supplying the city with water." 67
In part. Besides the cenotes and the cisterns,* the ancient Mayas
h. RY, I: 116, 144, 182, 206, 210, 221, 248, 266. Occasionally major emphasis is
placed on the natural pozos (ibid.: 47, and perhaps 290).
1, Stephens (1848, I: 232) assumes that the chultuns of Uxmal had provided water
for the people of the ruined city — "in part at least." Casares (1907: 227) also com-
l86 CORE, MARGIN, AND SUBMARGIN
constructed large pools or lakes, aguadas. Even in the hilly regions
where the terrain provided natural waterholes or cavities, sartenejos,
Casares considers the aguadas, whether natural or artificial, much
more important. Those that were man-made differed greatly in
shape and quality: "Some have a bottom made out of stones and
some have not such stones, and they are of all sizes — true works of
art they are — that show the ingenuity and attainments of their
builders." 5S
Few students have searched for these aguadas as eagerly as did the
pioneer explorer, Stephens. At first glance, many of them seemed
natural,69 and Stephens' informants felt sure — and recent research
has proven them to be right 60 — that "hundreds are perhaps now
buried in the woods, which once furnished this element of life to
the teeming population of Yucatan." 61
From the standpoint of hydraulic organization the importance of
this fact can scarcely be overrated. The cenotes usually required the
cooperative efforts of smaller communities only; and the urban
cisterns were probably constructed and maintained by the work
teams that "built at their own expense the houses of the lords." 62
But in the case of the aguadas large-scale cooperation was impera-
tive. In the midnineteenth century a ranchero, who wanted the
aguada near his estate cleaned, "secured the co-operation of all the
ranchos and haciendas for leagues around, and at length fairly en-
listing them all in the task, at one time he had at work fifteen
hundred Indians, with eighty superintendents." 63 This much co-
ordinated labor was required when a single aguada had to be
cleaned with iron tools. Under the stone-age conditions of the
ancient Maya, the cleaning, and still more the building, of a chain
of aguadas certainly involved huge work teams.
Further studies must be made before the institutional weight of
the man-made cenotes, cisterns, and aguadas can be fully determined.
But even our present limited knowledge entitles us to state that
the constructional operations of the Maya include a not inconsider-
able hydraulic sector. Aguadas were in use not only in the lowlands
but also in the hill zone,84 where some of the most ancient centers
of Maya civilization were located.85 And irrigation canals, artificial
lakes, and other familiar types of hydraulic works have been dis-
covered in the highland sector of the Maya area i and, of course,
also in the hill zone.*
ments on the limited capacity of these cisterns to satisfy the water needs of most of
the ancient cities.
j. In the old Maya city of Palenque, Stephens discovered the remains of a water
channel faced with large stones (Stephens, ITCA, II: 321 and 344). Blom found an
elaborate drainage system "in other parts of the ruins" (Blom and La Farge, TT, I:
CHAPTER 6, C 187
The nonhydraulic constructions of the ancient Maya have been
frequently described. The early Spanish records stress the magnitude
of the "houses" and "edifices," which the people built for their
secular and priestly masters; 66 and grandiose ruins confirm the early
written evidence. Massive stone highways connected a number of
cities, and like the pyramids, palaces, and temples they must have
required great levies of corvee labor.67
No compensation was given for certain types of the construction
corvee; 68 and a similar policy may have prevailed also with regard
to other corvee services, including agricultural labor for "the
lords." 69 But whether the pay arrangements for labor services were
uniform or not, there can be little doubt that the commoners worked
for their masters in a disciplined manner. Prominent men, obviously
officials, "who were very well obeyed," 70 acted on the ruler's behalf.
And the power of the sovereign, who controlled either a single city-
state or a cluster of such units, can be judged from the fact that local
officials received no share of the tax they collected for delivery to
the center."1 The so-called "town councilors," who assisted the highest
local official, were "in charge of certain subdivisions of the town,
collecting tribute and attending to other municipal affairs." 71 Ac-
cording to a regional description, the officials of the town wards
had "to attend to the tribute and services (communal labor?) at
the proper time and to assemble the people of their wards for
banquets and festivals as well as for war." 72 In addition to a variety
of civil officials, who used a hieroglyphic script and who, among
other things, kept land records,73 there were military officials, some
holding their posts for life, some being appointed for three-year
189). He also noticed a "fairly elaborate" irrigation system in Amatenango, Chiapas
(ibid., II: 396), a region which was formerly part of the Old Maya empire. Further
to the east, in Guatemala, Stephens (ITCA, I: 206) encountered "a large artificial
lake, made by damming up several streams." A canal in Honduras, probably pre-
historic, may have "served to irrigate a large portion of the lower plain" near Lake
Yojoa (Strong, Kidder, and Paul, 1938: 101).
k. The hill zone, intermediate between the mountain region and Northern Yucatan,
contains troughlike depressions, whose clay bottoms hold "lakes, swampy lowlands,
and streams" (Lundell, 1937: 5; Ricketson, 1937: 9; Cooke, 1931: 287), but even here
the greater part of the terrain is composed of a limestone so porous that the natural
precipitation quickly sinks below a readily accessible level, creating a dangerous
deficiency during three or four months of every year (Ricketson, 1937: 10). Bottle-
shaped chultuns, "excavated in the solid limestone throughout the region," may have
been used for storing water, if their walls were "rendered impervious by plaster"
(ibid.: 9 ff.). An aguada near Uaxactun is "doubtless the remains of an ancient reservoir,
and excavation in its bottom would probably lay bare the stone flooring with which it
originally had been paved" (Morley, 1938: 139).
m. The local officials were supported by the people, who worked their fields, main-
tained their houses, and served them personally (Tozzer, 1941: 62 ft., n. 292; Roys,
1943: 6a).
l88 CORE, MARGIN, AND SUBMARGIN
terms.7* Picked men, who did most of the fighting and who received
a special compensation, seem to have constituted cadre troops, but
"other men could also be called out." 75 The rulers determined (and
limited) the duration of a campaign in accordance with pragmatic
considerations, October to the end of January, the agricultural slack
season, being considered the most suitable time for waging war.76
In the acquisitive sphere the power of the regime over its subjects
was equally unchecked; and there is no reason to doubt that the
rulers used their opportunities to the full. It has been said that
"tribute" was light; 77 and the amounts requested from individual
households may indeed have been modest. But it must be remem-
bered that under Mexican and Inca dominion, subjects who culti-
vated the fields for the state and the temples paid no taxes. In
contrast to this, the Maya commoners who worked the fields of their
masters delivered in addition "maize, beans, chile, poultry, honey,
cotton cloth, and game." 78 One regional report implies that such
tributes were voluntary, but another dealing with the same locality
notes that anyone who failed to pay would be sacrificed to the gods.79
5. "Loose 2" or "Marginal 1"?
Our survey of Byzantium and Russia and of the Liao empire and
Maya civilization leads to several conclusions. The hydraulic density
of the four institutional complexes differs greatly: it is very low
or zero in the first two cases and relatively high in the last two.
As a matter of fact, a reasonable argument can be made for classing
Liao and the Maya as borderline cases of loose hydraulic societies —
variants of "Loose 2," to use our symbols. For the time being we
shall view them conservatively as marginal Oriental societies with
substantial hydraulic elements, "Marginal 1" (M 1), as juxtaposed
to "Marginal 2" (M 2), that is, Oriental societies with little or no
hydraulic substance.
The closeness of M 1 to L 2 and the gap between M 1 and M 2
are as significant as the fact that all variants of the marginal type
utilize the organizational and acquisitive methods of despotic state-
craft. Thus, however marginal they may be hydraulically, their
methods of social control place all of them definitely in the "Orien-
tal" world.
6. Fragmenting Patterns of Inheritance and a
Government-Dependent Dominant Religion
Many supplementary data can be adduced to strengthen our basic
classification. But here we shall refer only to two particularly sig-
CHAPTER 6, C 189
nificant criteria: the fragmenting system of inheritance and the
dependence of religious authority.
The Justinian Code — Novella 118 — prescribes the equal division
of property among the children of a deceased person. This provision,
whatever its origin, fits to perfection the needs of agrarian despotism.
In Russia proprietary conditions changed as greatly as the in-
stitutional patterns of which they were a part. Votchina land, a pre-
Mongol form of strong noble property, was not subjected to frag-
mentation; and this continued to be the custom until long after
the noble owners of such land were compelled to serve the state.
Pomestye land was office land. Originally it passed from father to
one son; 80 but since all adult males were obliged to render civil or
military service, the pomestye estate was finally considered a family
possession to be divided among the father's several heirs.81 When
the growing importance of firearms changed the aristocratic cavalry
army into a plebeian infantry army, fewer noble serving men were
needed, and Peter I, who merged pomestye and votchina land, made
the use of the new type of service (state) land hereditary.82 The law
of 1731 is an important milestone in the process of making pomestye
land private. From this year on, pomestye land was divided among
all the children and, according to the Law Book, "equally among
all of them." 83
In Western Europe the nobles emerged from a period of con-
tractual and limited (feudal) state service with their landed property
strengthened through primogeniture and entail. Contrary to this,
and contrary also to the indigenous votchina tradition, the nobles
of Tsarist Russia emerged from a period of compulsory and un-
limited state service with their landed property weakened through
a law of inheritance that prescribed fragmentation.
In Liao society the ruling tribal stratum — except in the matter of
imperial succession — seems to have rejected primogeniture,84 thus
maintaining its pastoral mores, which permitted all sons to share in
the family property. In its Chinese sector the regime was careful to
uphold the traditional Chinese laws.83 Many edicts praised Chinese
subjects who conformed to what were considered ideal patterns of
Chinese familism.86 This being so, we have no reason to doubt that
the government also upheld the fragmenting Chinese law of in-
heritance.
A fragmenting pattern of inheritance certainly prevailed among
the Maya. Says Landa: "These Indians did not permit their daughters
to inherit with their brothers, except it was through kindness or
good will; and in this case they gave them some part of the accumula-
tion, and the brothers divided the rest equally, except that to the
igO CORE, MARGIN, AND SUBMARGIN
one who had aided the most notably in increasing the property, they
gave the equivalent." 87
In Byzantium the Church, being nationally organized from the
beginning, was well prepared to strive for independence. But the
rulers of Eastern Rome and Early Byzantium treated religion as
part of the jus publicum; and even after the catastrophies of the
7th century, the Byzantine government was able to combat the
Church's drive for autonomy. In the 10th century the emperor still
played a decisive role in the selection of the Patriarch. And by
virtue of his judicial position he could also interfere in church
administration.88
Significantly, the Church became more independent in the last
phase of the Middle Empire; but even then the emperor could still
force an obstructing Patriarch to abdicate." It was only after the
period of the Latin Empire that a completely shattered autocracy
was compelled to tolerate an almost autonomous Church.89
In Tsarist Russia the bureaucratic regime expressed its enormous
vitality by its victory over the Eastern Church, which after the fall
of Byzantium shifted its center to Moscow, the "Third Rome." At
the end of the Mongol period the increasingly powerful Russian
state exerted an ever-increasing authority over the Church. Ivan III
seized half the monasterial land in Novgorod; Ivan IV, the Terrible,
required more taxes and services from Church land; 90 and in 1649
a new "department of monasteries" further tightened the state's
control over the Church.91 In 1721, Peter I abolished the Patriarchate
and placed the Church under a government body, the Holy Synod.92
And a few decades later, in 1 764, the state seized most of the Church
land without compensation, assigning only one-eighth of the revenue
from the land to the clergy.93 In consequence of these combined
political, religious, and economic measures, "the church became
more and more a part of the administrative machinery of the state." 94
In Liao society the problem of an independent Church never
arose. Government officials, headed by the emperor, shared leader-
ship in religious ceremonies with a variety of shamans, who, like
the priests of the Buddhist temples, obviously were not coordinated
in any nationwide and independent organization ("church").95
The close relation between secular and religious authority among
the Maya has already been mentioned. The ruler of a territorial state,
the halach uinic, is believed to have fulfilled "definite religious
functions"; 9a and certain priests might also be war chiefs.97 But
n. A serious conflict was finally decided in favor of the Church, not because the
Church was such a strong independent factor but because the high bureaucracy
turned against the sovereign (Ostrogorsky, 1940: 239 ft.).
CHAPTER 6, C igi
nothing indicates that the priests of the great temples were bound
together in any single organization, except insofar as they partici-
pated in the work of the government. Says Scholes: "In many cases
priestly and political functions had been combined in such a manner
that it was difficult, if not impossible, to differentiate them." 98
7. Location, Genesis, and Institutional Vulnerability
of Marginal Agrarian Despotisms
Middle and Late Byzantium, the Liao empire, and the Maya point
up some of the institutional diversities among marginal agrarian
despotisms. Discussion of other pertinent civilizations would differ-
entiate further the picture we have of this significant subtype. The
Hopi Indians of Arizona, for instance, engage in extremely modest
hydraulic enterprises — mainly communal spring cleaning" — but
their building activities are impressive.
Tibet was faced with certain irrigation tasks in the river valleys
of the high plateau,100 but the hydraulic weight of these tasks was
probably not great. Nevertheless, the "monk officials" 101 did operate
a well-functioning labor service 102 and an elaborate and fast postal
system also.103 Holders of land grants served the government uncon-
ditionally and as regular officials; 104 and the fiscal apparatus insisted
on taxing the bulk of the population.105
The kings of ancient Asia Minor and certain territorial rulers
in early China were more outstanding as builders and organizers
than as hydraulic engineers. But once the common institutional
denominator is understood, it is easy to recognize that all these civili-
zations are variants of the marginal type of hydraulic society.
How did these marginal configurations come into being? And
how open were they to change? Before trying to answer these ques-
tions, we must consider their relative location — that is, their spacial
relation to the major hydraulic areas of the world.
a. Location
Taking the major hydraulic zones of the Old and the New World
as coordinates, we find marginal developments, as for instance the
nonhydraulic territorial states of ancient China, interspersed between
definitely hydraulic areas. Many other marginal developments (the
Hopi Pueblos, the kingdoms of ancient Asia Minor, Middle By-
zantium, Tibet, Liao, and the Maya) appear at the geographical
periphery of a hydraulic zone.
Russia, however, does not. Russia had no close hydraulic neigh-
bors when, in the 13th century, the Mongols began to introduce
ig2 CORE, MARGIN, AND SUBMARGIN
Orientally despotic methods of government. Cases like Russia are
more the exception than the rule; but they serve to demonstrate
that marginal agrarian despotisms may arise at a great distance from
the nearest conspicuous center of hydraulic life.
b. Genesis
The relative location of most marginal agromanagerial states is
highly suggestive of their origins. The bulk of all such regimes ob-
viously came into being not earlier — and often demonstrably later
— than the area's oldest hydraulic civilizations. In some cases, such
as Byzantium, the marginal territory split off from an older (loose)
hydraulic complex. In others, the marginal territory was adjacent to
a hydraulic society proper; and while interrelation cannot always be
documented, it seems probable that it was the second type which
stimulated the first.
The constructional, organizational, and acquisitive patterns of the
hydraulic center may have been transferred directly to nonhydraulic
regions during periods of temporary control. Or native leaders may
have adopted the power techniques of their hydraulic neighbors,
which from the standpoint of the ruling group had much to recom-
mend them and which could be easily imposed on a society that
lacked strong, well-organized, and independent proprietary, military,
and ideological forces. Or experts in managerial and despotic control
may have gone from their hydraulic homeland to adjacent non-
hydraulic territories either in flight or on invitation to become
teachers or co-leaders in their new environment.
On an institutional checkerboard familiarity with the hydraulic
techniques of organization and acquisition was probably all that
was needed to encourage a changeover from a loosely coordinated
nonhydraulic tribe to a nonhydraulic managerial community. Thus
it is easy to understand why the Hopi Indians built fortress-like
villages similar to those of the more properly hydraulic Pueblos;
why, like the inhabitants of other Pueblos, they integrated their
work teams under communal leaders; and why they cultivated the
fields of their supreme chieftain.
A combination of state-centered hydraulic and marginal agro-
managerial societies may emerge from a composite tribal root. In
prehistoric and protohistoric China such a development may have
been stimulated by varied and prolonged culture contacts: visits,
alliances, trade relations, and conquests.
The introduction of marginal agromanagerial institutions by non-
agrarian tribal conquerors presents another genetic pattern. In this
CHAPTER 6, C 193
case, the conquerors employ and transfer organizational and ac-
quisitive methods of hydraulic statecraft, although they themselves
do not, to any relevant extent, practice agriculture, not even in its
nonhydraulic form. And being nomadic, they may carry these
methods far beyond the political and cultural borders of any major
hydraulic area. The Mongol conquest of Russia demonstrates both
points.0
The power of the Ch'i-tan differed from that of the Golden Horde
in character as well as in origin. The bulk of the agricultural regions
of the Liao empire had previously been part of the old, loosely
hydraulic world of China; and the Ch'i-tan masters found it easy to
perpetuate the traditionally absolutist administration with the aid
of Chinese officials, who were ready to act as junior partners in a
somewhat uneasy, but workable, alliance. Like the Mongols of the
Golden Horde, the Ch'i-tan tribesmen in their great majority re-
mained pastoralists; but their ruling group integrated itself closely
with Orientally despotic officials, who directed huge nonhydraulic
constructions and even considerable hydraulic operations.
The marginal agromanagerial societies discussed in our survey
came into being in various ways; but they all seem to have derived
from compact or loose hydraulic societies. In many instances, such
an origin is certain, and in others it is likely. But is it the necessary
and only way?
By no means. It is entirely possible that some agrodespotic societies
emerged independently. But obviously we can assume such a develop-
ment only when the despotic order in question fulfills the organiza-
tional and acquisitive functions of a hydraulic government and when,
for geographical and historical reasons, institutional diffusion can be
excluded as altogether unlikely. Having acknowledged the possibility
of independent origin, I must add that the cases in which agrodespotic
regimes in the terms of our inquiry certainly or probably have a
hydraulic ancestry are so numerous that the cases in which independ-
ent origins can be established will not substantially change our basic
contention. Virtually all historically significant agrodespotisms that
o. The attempt to explain the rise of Muscovite despotism as the consequence of
external military pressure usually results in the view that this pressure was exerted
in the main by Eastern nomadic aggressors (see Kluchevsky, HR, II: 319 ff.). The
imitation of despotic power techniques by a non-"Oriental" government is of
course conceivable, particularly if the nongovernmental sector of society lacks "strong,
well-organized, and independent proprietary, military, and ideological forces." How-
ever, the noble owners of votchina land, although not organized in a corporation,
were not without strength; and the actual events of the Mongol period show that
the Great Princes of Moscow, who set out to subdue them, were for a considerable
time directly under Tatar leadership.
194 CORE, MARGIN, AND SUBMARGIN
fulfill no hydraulic functions seem to have been derived from hy-
draulic societies.
c. Institutional Vulnerability
Direct or indirect connection with an agrohydraulic center seems
to have been necessary for the rise of virtually all marginal agrarian
despotisms. But a continued connection is not imperative for their
perpetuation. These marginal agrarian despotisms tend to survive
even serious internal crises without support from any hydraulic core
area. However, they are more likely than are the core areas to lose
their institutional identity under the impact of external nonhy-
draulic forces.
Obviously it is enormously difficult to create an effective counter-
weight to an apparatus government, which has succeeded in repress-
ing, crippling, and fragmenting those proprietary, military, and
ideological forces that enabled Medieval (feudal) Europe to evolve
into an industrial society. Serious political crises occurred in all
hydraulic societies. But the way in which the men of the apparatus
overcame them demonstrates the staying power of their methods of
organization and exploitation. Purposeful political activists strove
to reestablish the only thoroughly tested type of government, which,
at the same time, promised them total power and total privilege. And
their restorative endeavors were greatly facilitated by the political and
organizational ineptitude of their nongovernmental rivals. Among
the big landowners, even if they were many, politically ambitious
elements were much more eager to seize than to restrict total power.
And the representatives of mobile (capitalist) property, even if they
were many, were so unaccustomed to think in terms of property-
based state power that they were satisfied to get on with their busi-
ness without making the bid for political leadership that was so
characteristic of the differently conditioned bourgeoisie of the West
Subjected to the impact of strong external nonhydraulic forces, the
hydraulic periphery is manifestly more brittle than the hydraulic
core area. Invaded by nomadic tribes, hydraulic North China at times
split into several territorial units; but even when the conquering
"barbarians" became the rulers, these regions maintained their tradi-
tional agrodespotic power structure. In contrast, the marginal hy-
draulic society of Western Rome collapsed under tribal attacks, and
non-Oriental forms of government and society emerged. Also, in
contemplating the fate of Late Byzantium, it seems legitimate to
suggest that a more intensely managerial (hydraulic) order would
have survived the Latin conquest without yielding to the proprietary
elements within its borders to the point of paralysis. Recent Russia
CHAPTER 6, D 195
offers a particularly illuminating example. Shaken but not subdued
by aggression from the outside, the Tsarist bureaucracy permitted
the spread of Western ideas, the growth of private enterprises, and
the establishment of anti-autocratic groups and parties, which, in
1917, temporarily changed Russia from a single-centered to a multi-
centered society.*
D. THE SUBMARGINAL ZONE OF
THE HYDRAULIC WORLD
1. The Phenomenon
The effective coordination of absolutist methods of organization and
acquisition is the minimum requirement for the maintenance of a
genuine agrarian despotism. Outside this margin we find civiliza-
tions that, although lacking such a combination, exhibit stray features
of hydraulic statecraft. The areas in which such stray features occur
in other societal orders constitute the submarginal zone of the
hydraulic world.
2. Cases
a. Protohistorical Greece
An institutional analyst of protohistorical Greece cannot fail to be
struck by the hydraulic quality of Minoan Crete. This civilization
certainly owed its international prominence to its maritime relations;
but while acknowledging this, we must not forget that nearness to
the sea alone explains little. The ancient Cretans, like other seafaring
peoples, established their thalassocracy on the basis of specific in-
ternal conditions.
To what extent Aegean patterns of "fetching water by artificial
means" and of using canals and ditches for the purposes of refined
agriculture x made Minoan society hydraulic is not clear. It is clear,
however, that the islanders accomplished miracles regarding matters
of drainage and probably also of water supply.2 We do know that
Crete was covered with a network of excellent roads.8 And we have
reason to believe that the supervisor of public works occupied a
high position * in the country's complex and centralized adminis-
tration.5 The Minoan script is still undeciphered, but the govern-
ment certainly employed it widely for "bureaucratic methods of
p. For a fuller discussion of this phenomenon see below, Chap. 10.
196 CORE, MARGIN, AND SUBMARG1N
registration and accounting which were handed down from century
to century and were perfected in the process." G
These and other facts support the view that "the Minoan civiliza-
tion was essentially non-European." 7 And although the Minoans
had too many cultural peculiarities to be called "part of the East," 8
they were connected through "a few clear and even close bonds with
Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt." 9 Ehrenberg concludes that "in partic-
ular the sultan-like life of the kings of Cnossus and Phaestus, their
courts, their officials, their economy, displayed features which were
similar to those of their opposite numbers in the Near East; they
were equally unlike anything Western." 10
The proto-Greek Mycenaean civilization, which rose when Minoan
power decayed, accounts for significant quasihydraulic developments
in Argolis and Boeotia, and probably also in other parts of eastern
Greece. Between the middle and the close of the second millennium
b.c. Mycenaean engineers executed great drainage works around the
Lake of Copais in Boeotia; and they covered Argolis with an elab-
orate network of roads.11 Their rulers lived in huge castle-like
edifices, and they erected monumental tombs.12 Bengtson compares
their constructional achievements to "the great creations of the
ancient Orient, the pyramids and the ziqqurats." 13 True, we hear
nothing of a bureaucracy, and the use of the early script seems to
have been restricted.14 But despite such limitations, Bengtson be-
lieves that "only a strong central power could plan and execute these
works," which, considering their magnitude, in all probability re-
quired the services of both native corvee laborers and captured
slaves.*
Moreover, an Oriental origin has been suggested for the worship
of the earth gods and the stars which the historical Greeks inherited
from their Mycenaean ancestors, and it was indeed in connection
with such religious observances that they practiced prostration.15
But when the Greeks of the classical period refused to perform before
an Oriental despot the act of submission they considered appropriate
to the gods,16 they demonstrated that even if Mycenaean Greece was
marginally hydraulic, post-Mycenaean Greece belonged to the sub-
marginal zone of the hydraulic world. In the classical period also
the monumental edifices of Argolis 1T had long lost their significance;
and the grandiose temple city of Athens, the Acropolis, whose be-
ginnings go back to Mycenaean times,18 was administered by a gov-
ernment that delegated even the management of its public works to
private entrepreneurs.19
a. Bengtson, 1950: 41. Bengtson mentions the slaves before he mentions the native
corvee laborers, but he calls the latter as numerous as the former.
CHAPTER 6, D 197
b. Early Rome
Prior to Roman times the Etruscans, who apparently came from
the marginal hydraulic zone of Asia Minor,20 are known to have
engaged in stupendous building activities. Their waterworks in the
Po Plain are impressive,21 and others undertaken in Central Italy
are equally worthy of attention.22 While under Etruscan dominion,
the Romans learned how to construct "monumental works." 23 Later,
but before they established their first colony on Hellenistic ground,
they began to build solid overland roads.24 But although such de-
velopments are more characteristic of a hydraulic than a relatively
simple rainfall-based agrarian order, Rome at this period manifestly
was an aristocratic variant of a multicentered non-Oriental society.
c. Japan
In ancient Greece and Rome Oriental elements have often been
overlooked. In Japan they have frequently been overestimated, and
this for a good reason. Japan is part of the Asian continent, and
Japanese civilization shares important features with China and India.
Furthermore, the Japanese have developed one of the most subtle
systems of irrigation farming known to man. Nevertheless, Japanese
society never was hydraulic in the terms of our inquiry.
Why did Japan's rice economy not depend on large and govern-
ment-directed water works? Any competent economic geographer
can answer this question. The peculiarities of the country's water
supply neither necessitated nor favored substantial government-
directed works. Innumerable mountain ranges compartmentalized
the great Far Eastern islands; and their broken relief encouraged a
fragmented (hydroagricultural) rather than a coordinated (hydraulic)
pattern of irrigation farming and flood control. According to the in-
stitutional historian, Asakawa, the Japanese landscape permitted "no
extensive Bewasserungskultur as in Egypt and in parts of western
Asia and China." 2S Japan's irrigation agriculture was managed by
local rather than by regional or national leaders; and hydraulic
trends were conspicuous only on a local scale and during the first
phase of the country's documented history.
The rulers of the dominant political center effected a loose politi-
cal unification at a rather early date, but they were not faced with
hydraulic tasks that required the coordinated operation of large
corvee teams. Nor were they conquered by the forces of an Orientally
despotic state. They therefore failed to establish a comprehensive
managerial and acquisitive bureaucracy capable of controlling the
ig8 CORE, MARGIN, AND SUBMARGIN
nongovernmental forces of society as did the men of the apparatus
on the Chinese mainland.
The attempt to establish a centralized and bureaucratic despotism
in Japan reached its first spectacular climax in the Taikwa Reform
of 646. From the standpoint of our key criteria, its objectives can be
listed as follows:
I. Construction
A. Hydraulic. An edict of 646 demanded uniform proce-
dures relating to dikes and canals.26
B. Nonhydraulic. The basic reform edict ordered the
creation of a system of roads for the imperial post.
II. Organization
A. The population was to be counted periodically and
census registers were to be kept.
B. A government corvee replaced older local (and quasi-
feudal) obligations.
C. A state post was to be operated.
III. Acquisition
A. The peasants were to be taxed on the basis of the land
which the government assigned to them.
B. Service in the state corvee could be commuted by the
payment of a tax.27
C. A number of officials, particularly local and high-
ranking dignitaries, were to be supported from land
holdings, which had often been previously owned by the
new appointees and which were tax exempt.
Compared with the Merovingian and Carolingian attempts at ab-
solute rule, the Japanese program of 646 was much more Oriental.
This fact cannot be explained by Japanese contact with T'ang China
alone. For centuries the Japanese had practiced irrigation farming 28
and their rulers had engaged in constructing works of a non-
hydraulic type. Thus the effort of the masters of the Reform govern-
ment to do as the Chinese emperors did was rooted in indigenous
trends that were definitely, if rudimentarily, hydraulic.
But these quasi-Oriental trends were unable to shape Japanese
society. The hydraulic innovations suggested in the Reform lacked
the dynamism that characterized similar attempts in early hydraulic
societies. The Reform favored the execution of "public works";
but while three of the six T'ang ministries (taxation, war, and
justice) were taken over with little modification and two others
(administrative personnel and rites) were successfully modified, the
CHAPTER 6, D 199
sixth (the Board of Public Works) found no counterpart in the
new Japanese set-up.29
This omission was no accident. A canal that was dug in 656 struck
the people as "mad"; and its critics compared it with a useless colossal
hill that was built at the same time.30 Moreover, the decrees that
proclaimed a universal state labor service required many less days
of corvee work than did T'ang regulations. And the provisions for
commuting the corvee by paying a tax showed the Japanese govern-
ment more interested in revenue than in labor.31
The assignment (and/or reassignment) of tax-free land to im-
portant officials was perhaps the Reform government's greatest con-
cession to the feudal forces of Japanese society. Behind the new
bureaucratic facade a fierce fight was being made to extend and
consolidate tax-free land. And so successful were the representatives
of the centrifugal forces that the official grantees eventually estab-
lished themselves as hereditary landowners who, like their European
counterparts, introduced a single-heir system of succession.32
As the system of tenure changed, universal census taking collapsed;
and attempts to reestablish it led nowhere.33 General taxation met
the same fate. Many elements of Chinese culture notwithstanding,
the decentralized and property-based society of the Japanese Middle
Ages resembled much more closely the feudal order of the remote
European world than the hydraulic patterns of nearby China. The
poets of feudal Japan, like their confreres in feudal Europe, glorified
the heroic deeds of individual warriors or groups of warriors. But
the loosely agglomerated armies of Medieval Japan did not stimulate
tactical or strategic thinking. The Japanese writers of the period
quoted Chinese military authorities, such as Sun Tzu; but feudal
Japan, like feudal Europe, failed to develop the art of war.6 Prior to
1543, the Japanese armies "were made up of small, independent
bands of soldiers who fought more as individuals than as units of a
tactical formation." "
b. The reader will remember that the term "art of war" connotes the practice and
theory of strategy and tactics. A recent survey of ancient and medieval military or-
ganization ascribes "the beginnings of an acknowledged art of war" in postfeudal
Europe to Maurice of Nassau (Atkinson, 1910: 599), who played a decisive role in the
latter part of the Dutch War of Independence.
c. Brown, 1948: 236 if. A collection of early Japanese texts, Gunsho Ruiju, contains
many references to Sun Tzu and other military theoreticians of his period. But the
Japanese treatment of warfare is "a rather scattered melange quite unlike Sun Tzu.
. . . The first integrated treatment of the subject comes in a work by Takeda Shingen
(1521-1573)" (from a letter of February 16, 1954, from Dr. Marius Jansen, University of
Washington, Seattle, who established this point in collaboration with his colleague,
Dr. Richard N. McKinnon)
200 CORE, MARGIN, AND SUBMARGIN
The absolutist concentration of government power, which char-
acterized the Tokugawa period (1603-1867), again resembled more
closely Western absolutist developments, both in its economic aspect
(the slow rise of property-based commercial and industrial capi-
talism) and in its political limitations. It was during this period —
actually in 1726 — that "the first tolerably exact census" was taken.34
It was then that the road system spread vigorously; 35 and it was
then that the government, like certain of the prominent feudal lords,
dug a number of locally important canals.36
But despite these and other activities — which, except for the irri-
gation works, find illuminating parallels in absolutist Europe — the
absolutist regime of Japan was not strong enough to establish its
acquisitive power over the whole empire. Out of a national revenue
of twenty-eight or twenty-nine million koku, the representatives of
supreme power, the Tokugawa shoguns and the court, arrogated to
themselves only about eight million koku, while by far the larger
part of the revenue remained in the hands of great feudal vassals.37
Japanese absolutism sharply restricted the power of the feudal lords.
But until 1867 it was unable to eliminate them.
While stressing the similarities between traditional Japanese
society and the feudal and postfeudal West, we must be careful not
to oversimplify the picture. The Oriental quality of many Japanese
institutions and ideas is beyond doubt. On the lower and local level,
Japanese irrigation agriculture required quasihydraulic coordina-
tion and subordination; and the feudal lords' insistence upon ab-
solute obedience may, at least in part, reflect such quasihydraulic
relations. Rudiments of a postal system seem to have existed prior
to the Tokugawa period; 38 and the symbol of total submission,
prostration, persisted until modern times.4* The members of the
ruling group, although strongly imbued with a military spirit, con-
tinued to think in terms of a somewhat adjusted Confucianism; S9
and although they invented simplified phonetic symbols, they em-
ployed with genuine pride the Chinese script, which, like Con-
fucius' conception of the gentleman-bureaucrat, was better suited to
a civil and learned officialdom than to a war-minded knighthood.
To sum up: traditional Japan was more than Western feudalism
with wet feet. While the Far Eastern island society gave birth to a
property-based and genuinely feudal order, its many and cherished
elements of Chinese policy and thought show that, in a submarginal
way, it was related to the institutional patterns of the hydraulic
world.
d. During my stay in Japan in 1935 a number of university professors greeted each
other in my presence — and prior to an official banquet — by prostration.
CHAPTER 6, D 201
d. Pre-Mongol (Kievan) Russia
Russian society prior to the Mongol conquest (1237-40) presents
another and equally illuminating aspect of the hydraulic submargin.
In pre-Kievan and Kievan days the subsistence economy of the "Rus"
included stock-raising; e but its mainstay was agriculture, rainfall
agriculture.40 Under the conditions of a primarily natural economy
this agriculture favored the development of a broadly spread landed
nobility, which was subordinated to the territorial princes in a loose
way/ Below this stratum, but above the slave-like kholopi*1 a class
of free cultivators moved with comparative ease; 42 and the towns-
people were even less restricted. Their "council," the veche, could
take independent political action not only in the great northern
republic of Novgorod 43 but also in such capital cities as Vladimer,44
and even in Kiev.45 Prior to the establishment of the Kievan state
(ca. 880) ° legal transactions could be consummated, and without in-
terference from any princely authority, by the heads of the rural —
and urban — communities, which in the most ancient Russian law
code extant are called mir.n And even in the Kievan era (ca. 880-
1169), the government, although considerably stronger than pre-
viously, was far from being absolutist — indeed as far from such a
condition as the government of any feudal state in the contemporary
West. Institutionally speaking, Kievan society manifestly belonged
to the protofeudal and feudal world of Europe.
It belonged to this world, but in a way that requires special
investigation. Like hydraulic society, feudal society, too, has an
institutional margin; and Russia's tribal civilization, which arose
on the eastern periphery of the feudal world, was for centuries, and
particularly after 88o,4C dominated by the Varangians,47 who were
rooted in — and repeatedly supported by — a northern fringe area:
Scandinavia. But although Rurik had once received a fief from
the Frankish emperor,48 he did not impose the Western European
system of land tenure on the Eastern Slavs. Nor did his successors.
e. The oldest known version of the Russian law, Russkaya Pravda, mentions crimes
pertaining to oxen, sheep, goats, horses, calves, and lambs (Goetz, RR, I: 15 ff.).
/. This fact has been established through the pioneer investigations of Pavlo-
Silvansky. For a survey of his major conclusions see Borosdin, 1908: 577. For an inde-
pendent study arriving at similar conclusions for the early Russian society see Hotzsch,
1912: 544.
g. Vernadsky (1943: 368) places Oleg's conquest of Kiev "between a.d. 878 and 880
(tentatively, 878)."
h. Russkaya Pravda, I, 17 = Goetz, RR, I: 8, 9. Cf. Vernadsky, 1948: 134. In the
third version of the Law, the early term, tnir, is replaced by gorod, city (Russkaya
Pravda, III: 40 = Goetz, RR, I: 28, 29, cf. 272 ff.).
202 CORE, MARGIN, AND SUBMARGIN
The native nobles and the members of the princely retinue, the
druzhina, operated under no feudal contract.49 Their freedom to
"ride away" 60 indicates a type of independence that in Western
feudalism was more the exception than the rule.61 On the other
hand, the princely rulers of the various territorial states drew their
maintenance not from royal domains, as was usual in most feudal
countries, but from a general tax, custom fees, and legal fines.62
Thus Kievan society resembled the feudal order of the West in
that the rulers shared the power of making political decisions "with
the popular assembly (veche) and the senate (boyarskaya duma)"; 63
and the nobles were able to establish a form of absolute landowner-
ship that the lords of Western Europe matched only at the close of
the Middle Ages. As in the feudal West, the cities — at least the large
ones — and the nobles paid no taxes.64 But this extremely loose ar-
rangement interlocked with a fiscal system that permitted the sover-
eign to tax the entire rural population. The principle of levying a
tax on each fireplace was employed in Byzantium; 65 and the semi-
pastoral Khazars applied it to those Eastern Slavs over whom, prior
to the victory of the Varangians, they had control. The Varangians
followed the fiscal procedure of the Khazars,66 and they continued to
do so with modifications during the whole Kievan period.67 They
also adopted other "Asiatic" features from the Khazars or related
tribes. For a time their rulers referred to themselves as "khagans"; *
and prior to the introduction of Christianity they apparently kept
their numerous concubines in harem-like confinement.*
Direct Byzantine influence made itself felt relatively early. In
addition to many literary and artistic elements, the Russians adopted
Eastern Christianity and Byzantine law, both of which affected the
political climate of Kiev. The Byzantine ("Greek") priests, who
came to Russia, carried with them significant ideas of theocratic
rule and subordination. Accustomed to act as part rather than as
rivals of the secular government, they certainly enhanced the power
of the prince.* The introduction of Byzantine law further strength-
i. Vernadsky (1943: 282) assumes borrowing from the Khazars. The title khaghan was
borne by "the first Kievan princes." Apart from Vladimir, his son Yaroslav is also
known to have been thus addressed by the Metropolitan Hilarion (ibid.: 370, and n.
302).
;'. Prior to his conversion, Vladimir is said to have had about 800 concubines
(Nestor, 1931: 55).
k. This fact has been stressed by a number of historians. Platonov points out that
the "Christian and Byzantine conception of the prince as a ruler by divine right . . .
was opposed to the pagan view that the prince was a mere leader of a druzhina, and
could be driven out and killed" (Platonov, 1925: 40). The Soviet academician Grekov
quotes fully the pertinent statement in the Nestor Chronicle: "God gives the power to
CHAPTER 6, D 203
ened the Kievan sovereigns. In the second Constantinople-influenced
version of the Russian law the ruler and his functionaries emerge
clearly as the possessors of supreme judicial authority.68
But Kievan society did not accept the legal notions of the great
Eastern empire in toto. The Byzantine code prescribed corporal
punishment for horse stealing; but the revised Russian law continued
to demand a fine for this act.59 Despite its great prestige, Byzantine
law did not supersede the Kievan view that a free man should not
be beaten.
3. Comment
Evidently, the civilizations in the submargin of hydraulic society
exhibit a wide institutional range; and their basic structures can
be understood only if they are viewed first in their primary institu-
tional context. However, certain secondary qualities, which link them
to the hydraulic world, must not be overlooked:
1) A civilization that was once part of this world may, in a later
nonhydraulic phase, still preserve certain traces of its previous con-
dition, which, although not necessary to the new configuration, are
compatible with it. Post-Mycenaean Greece probably belongs to this
category.
2) The voluntary adoption of desirable "Oriental" features ac-
counts for such phenomena as Taikwa Japan and Kievan Russia.
Another point that is valid for marginal hydraulic societies is
also valid for the submargin. It would be incorrect to view as sub-
marginally hydraulic an agrarian society which exhibits certain
despotic features of organization and acquisition but which has no
known link to the hydraulic world. Individual features of hydraulic
statecraft, such as the levying of a general tax or the collection of a
general tribute, certainly have emerged in civilizations which had
little or no contact with this world. In a number of tribal societies
this obviously happened; and if we did not know of the Asiatic
background of the Khazars, we might also feel tempted to place
their system of tribute gathering in this independent and residual
category. Comparative analysis must in each instance decide whether
we are dealing with submarginally hydraulic or independent trends.
whomever he wishes; the Supreme Being appoints whomever he desires as the caesar
or prince." Each state should be headed by a caesar or prince, and state power is of
divine origin — these are indeed "the familiar features of the Byzantine conception
of state power." Grekov underlines the authoritarian spirit of the famous Christian
chronicle: "Anyone who attacked the authority — according to the theory — opposed
God." And "Yaroslav's merit lies in the restoration of a single authority in the state"
(Grekov, 1947: 133 ft.)-
204 CORE, MARGIN, AND SUBMARGIN
E. SOCIETIES WHICH CROSS
THE INSTITUTIONAL DIVIDE
The submarginal zone of the hydraulic world cannot be explained
by a simple formula. Nor is it necessarily self-perpetuating. A num-
ber of historically prominent civilizations of the submargin have
crossed the institutional divide and become either marginal hydrau-
lic societies or hydraulic societies proper. Others have moved in the
opposite direction.
The civilizations discussed so far have been essentially agrarian.
The very concept of a hydraulic economy implies agriculture. But
the history of the Ch'i-tan, the Mongols, and other tribal conquerors
demonstrates that Oriental despotism is not confined to agrarian
societies. Nonagricultural peoples, too, may adopt and transmit
techniques of despotic government; and they may "Orientalize" non-
agricultural as well as agricultural groups. The importance of this
fact for the understanding of many despotic conquest societies and
of the dynamics of the institutional divide is obvious.
1. Nonagricultural Peoples Adopting and Transmit-
ting Power Devices of Agrarian Despotism
Representatives of many extractive modes of subsistence —
gathering, hunting, and fishing — have lived at the fringe of the hy-
draulic world. In this respect, the margin of Pueblo society x and
the early phases of Aztec history are instructive. But no primitive
nonagricultural group has played as important a role as the pas-
toralists. The New World lacked animals suitable for drawing carts
and carrying men. The Old World had several species that could be
so used. Their domestication greatly benefited the plant breeders;
but primarily it benefited the pastoralists, who, after the invention of
riding, became the military equals, and at times the masters, of large
and wealthy agrarian commonwealths.2
a. Such Devices Not Necessary for, but Compatible with,
Nomadic Pastoralism
Pastoral nomads frequently supplement their herding economy
by farming.3 Yet the need to move their herds prevents them from
giving more than casual attention to whatever crops they plant near
their camping grounds. Their migratory way of life, however well
regulated, excludes the construction of elaborate and permanent
works of water control, which form the foundation of hydraulic
agriculture.
CHAPTER 6, E 205
But this mode of life does not prevent them from adopting
Orientally despotic methods of organization and acquisition. To be
sure, such methods do not grow out of the needs of pastoral life.
Although some coordination and subordination are imperative for
effective camping and trekking, and although disciplined procedure
is highly advantageous for hunting and warfare,* these practices do
not necessarily lead to the establishment of a political apparatus
stronger than all nongovernmental forces of society. Technical
factors (the ever-recurring need for dispersing herds and men) and
social factors (the resistance of the free tribesmen to the demand
for total submission) work in the opposite direction. Even subordina-
tion under a strong military leader is essentially voluntary. Limited
in time and not bulwarked by irreversible organizational arrange-
ments, it rarely, if ever, destroys the loose and fluid character of the
tribal society.6
The chiefly leader and those close to him are eager to place
themselves in a position of permanent and total power; but as a rule
they attain this goal only after submission to, or conquest of, a
hydraulic country. In the first case the overlords of the agrarian
state may apply their own patterns of political control (registration,
corvee, taxation) to the submitting herders, whose chieftain usually
emerges as the absolute and permanent master of his tribe. In the
second case the supreme chieftain (khan, khaghan, etc.) seizes the
power devices of the agromanagerial civilizations he has conquered.
Bulwarked by indigenous officials who maintain the traditional ad-
ministration and by a group of tribal followers whose number grows
with his successes, he reduces his noble rivals to a shadow of their
former importance, if he does not annihilate them altogether.
In both cases the tribesmen may lose their cultural — and eventually
also their sociopolitical — identity. This happened to many Arab
groups under the Abbassid caliphate. In such a situation the prob-
lem itself ceases to exist. However, submitting tribesmen are usually
not eager to relinquish their old way of life; nor are tribal con-
querors as easily absorbed as legend has it.6 With proper modifica-
tions, the tribal masters of a compound hydraulic empire may main-
tain their social and cultural identity; and while doing so, they may
impose their newly acquired power techniques to outlying nonhy-
draulic countries. This happened when the Mongols, after the con-
quest of North China, subdued Russia.
The disintegration of a compound hydraulic empire may again
make all or some of its tribal elements autonomous; and it is at this
moment that the perpetuation of despotic power, under conditions
of tribal pastoralism, is put to the test. At times the despotic regime
206 CORE, MARGIN, AND SUBMARGIN
dissolves as completely as the empire of which it was a part. But
historical experience shows that the beneficiaries of absolutist gov-
ernment continued in a privileged position, at least to some extent
and for some time. Obviously then, despotic methods of organization
and acquisition, although not a necessary adjunct of nomadic pas-
toralism, are definitely compatible with it.
b. The Brittleness of Orientally Despotic Power at the
Pastoral Fringe of the Hydraulic World
Recent studies have provided a wealth of data concerning all these
processes for the Ch'i-tan tribes, who, as Liao rulers, were the
temporary masters of the northeastern fringe of China. Many mono-
graphs have clarified corresponding aspects of Mongol history; and
future investigations of the tribal conquest societies of the Near
East, of Persia, India, and pre-Spanish America will certainly bring
to light many other varieties of this important institutional con-
formation.
Already our present knowledge enables us to juxtapose the pastoral
and the agrarian forms of a marginal hydraulic society. Without
doubt, the staying power of genuine despotism is much greater
under agricultural than under tribal, pastoral, or nomadic condi-
tions. The fluidity of a steppe economy encourages diffusion and
separation and, as a corollary, the growth of independent centers of
animal wealth and military power. Natural calamities or serious
military reverses weaken and dissolve a pastoral despotism as quickly
as the fortunes of war and conquest bring it into being. The
meteoric rise and fall of many steppe empires in Inner and West
Asia and in Southeast Europe illuminate the brittleness of pastoral
despotism.
The "Black" Ch'i-tan tribes, who grazed their herds in Northern
Mongolia a hundred years after Liao fell, revealed few traces of the
coordinated political order maintained by their forebears either in
the Far East or in Turkestan.7 After the collapse of the Great Khan's
empire, Mongol power shrank to a shadow of its former self, but it
did not disappear altogether. In 1640 the Mongol-Oirat were still
restrained by laws which, although considerably milder than Chingis
Khan's Yasa* forced the tribesmen to participate in a relatively
heavy transport corvee.9 Manifestly, postempire Mongol society was
not entirely lacking in cohesiveness when attachment to the rising
Manchu star gave their secular and religious masters a chance to sup-
port, in a privileged if secondary way, another ambitious attempt
CHAPTER 6, E 207
to establish a despotic regime, first in the margin and later in a great
core area of the hydraulic world.
2. Agricultural Civilizations Crossing the
Institutional Divide
The changeover of pastoral societies from a nonhydraulic to a
hydraulic order proceeds, as a rule, on a geographical as well as on an
institutional level. In contrast to this, changing agrarian societies do
not change their locale. They move from one order to another ex-
clusively on the institutional level.
A second difference concerns the potential range of the change-
over. Pastoral societies, which preserve their economic identity, may
shift from the submarginal to the marginal zone of the hydraulic
world and vice versa. Agrarian societies that were originally sub-
marginal may become marginal hydraulic or full-fledged hydraulic
societies and vice versa.
Like pastoral societies, agrarian societies change their institutional
quality most frequently at the geographical periphery of agroman-
agerial areas; for it is here that the forces of the hydraulic and the
nonhydraulic world have wrestled with each other for millennia. The
societal transmutations of Greece, Rome, Spain, and Russia are all
part of this gigantic interaction.
a. Greece
From a marginal or submarginal hydraulic position, Mycenaean
Greece evolved into a civilization whose aristocratic and democratic
energies prevented the state from exerting unchecked control over
the nongovernmental forces of society. The Greeks of Homer, Hesiod,
and Sophocles prostrated before certain of their gods; but they re-
fused to recognize the supreme representative of state power as their
master (despotes).
For many centuries, and despite their proximity to the hydraulic
world, the Greek cities in Western Asia upheld within their limits
the principles of a multicentered society. Only in the wake of Alex-
ander's conquests did the old constitutional freedoms begin to shrink.
The Hellenistic sovereigns of the Orient reduced the political inde-
pendence of their own co-nationals in Asia and at home. Together
with their Macedonian-Greek aides, they readily donned the robes
of Orientally despotic power.
The early Roman empire and Byzantium completed what the
Hellenistic dynasties had initiated. The Greeks of the Near East —
208 CORE, MARGIN, AND SUBMARGIN
and those of the motherland — became part of a hydraulic empire,
which included impressive areas of loose (Syria) and compact (Egypt)
hydraulic economy. During the 7th century this empire shifted to
the margin of the hydraulic world. Later the conquering Turks re-
stored it once more to a loosely hydraulic position.
The Byzantine and Turkish Greeks were no longer the Hellenes
of Hesiod, Pericles, and Aristotle. This is probably true ethnically,
and it is certainly true institutionally. The scions of Mycenae, who
during the classical period and for the free members of their com-
munity created exemplary models of democratic citizenship, were
the ancestors of the Byzantine Greeks, whose elaborate court cere-
monial made "Byzantinism" a catchword for man's total, if ritualized,
submission to total power.
b. Rome
i. THE RISE OF A HELLENISTIC VERSION OF
ORIENTAL DESPOTISM
I n Greece the shift to hydraulic forms of state and society was initi-
ated by Alexander's conquest. In Rome the establishment of absolute
and monarchic rule by Augustus signals not the beginning but a rela-
tively advanced stage of a process that had been under way for about
two hundred years.
In the institutional history of Rome the year 2 1 1 B.C. is a fateful
date. It was in this year that in the subdued Sicilian kingdom of
Syracuse the Romans "encountered for the first time a subtly elabo-
rate legal system of a primary agrarian state patterned after Egyptian
and general Hellenistic models." 10 The victorious Italian republic
made this system, the so-called Lex Hieronica, "the basis for the
organization of its first provincial economy." xl By so doing, it
adopted a basic principle of Hellenistic statecraft, which declared the
state the holder of absolute power and the owner of all land.12
As the successors of Hieron, the Roman conquerors made their
state, the populus Romanus, the supreme master of Sicily's agrarian
economy. And they acted similarly also in the other territories of
their growing empire. In the regions of the Eastern Mediterranean
this involved little change. But in the western areas of Roman ex-
pansion nonhydraulic conditions prevailed. It is therefore extremely
significant that the Italian conquerors, with proper modifications,
transferred the Hellenistic system "also to the West." 13
From the Roman point of view the Hellenistic principle of general
taxation was "a complete innovation." And this innovation was a
CHAPTER 6, E 20g
success because it was supplemented by a periodic and comprehensive
census. According to Hieron's plan, which the Romans adopted, "it
was the duty of the city magistrates every year to take a census of all
the farmers of the district . . . recording both the complete acreage
. . . and the acreage of each crop actually under cultivation." 14
These external developments did not automatically create a state
stronger than society in the Roman homeland; but the metropolis
underwent internal changes which devastatingly weakened the tradi-
tional aristocratic republic. On the one hand, the unending wars of
conquest enriched the senatorial landlords, who employed an ever-
increasing number of slaves; on the other hand, these wars exhausted
the peasantry. Together with the land-hungry veterans, the im-
poverished peasants offered an ideal mass basis for the policies of the
populates and of the victorious generals, who did not hesitate to
confiscate and redistribute the estates of their erstwhile opponents.15
The civil wars also increased the vulnerability of the wealthy busi-
nessmen, the equites, some of whom as tax farmers, publicani, prof-
ited greatly from the growth of the Roman realm. During the ad-
vancing crisis the equites enjoyed as little personal and proprietary
safety as did the members of the senatorial group.
Evidently, the internal changes were so closely tied up with the
country's territorial expansion that any attempt to explain the fall
of the republic exclusively on the basis of either internal or external
factors must prove inadequate. The generals who dominated the
political scene, particularly in the 1st century b.c, rose to power
because of the size and peculiarity of the territories they occupied.
It was in these areas that they secured their material support; and
it was in these areas that they tested the effectiveness of Hellenistic
methods of government.
How much did any single individual contribute to the changes
that occurred in Roman society? For the purpose of our inquiry it
is sufficient to note that in Caesar's time the senate had already lost
both its social homogeneity and its uncontested political hegemony
and that Caesar, who like other great politician-generals of the period
gave land to the veterans, challenged the senatorial representatives
of large landed property as a "man of the people," a popularis. Here,
as elsewhere, absolute power was established through the agency
of men who used a popular cause to advance their political aims.
At the time of Caesar's assassination the strongest proprietary force
in Rome, the senatorial group, had been so shaken that Augustus,
who officially controlled a number of "imperial" provinces (among
them the old hydraulic areas of Egypt and Syria) was able to control
the "senatorial" provinces too.16 From 29 b.c. on, the senators, who
210 CORE, MARGIN, AND SUBMARGIN
previously had been the decisive force behind the administration,
had to get a permit from Augustus before they could leave Italy;
and "if the object of their travel was a visit to Egypt, [the request]
was refused on principle." 17 During the subsequent period the once
dominant aristocratic landowning senators were more and more
replaced by persons who became members of the senate because
they were in the emperor's service. And the representatives of mobile
wealth and capitalist enterprise, who, as publicani, had collected
taxes and customs fees for the government and, as contractors, had
executed certain "public works," were plundered by Pompey, weak-
ened by Caesar, and subordinated by Augustus.18 Eventually they
lost their significance altogether.19 Thus the Roman metropolis,
which temporarily had ruled a huge Hellenistically hydraulic em-
pire without itself being hydraulic,0 eventually caved in under the
hammer blows of forces which drew their ultimate strength from this
very empire.
In this gigantic process of transformation Augustus was not only
the grave digger of the old social forces, but also the pioneer in ad-
ministrative and managerial change. Despite great loyalty to the
cultural values of Rome, the first emperor (princeps) patterned his
absolutist state not on early Rome or classical Greece — from which,
indeed, he would have gotten little inspiration — but on the Hellen-
istic Orient.6 By laying the foundations for a salaried officialdom,20
he initiated a bureaucratic development that rapidly gained mo-
mentum in the ist century a.d.21
Agromanagerial methods of acquisition and organization had al-
ready been employed in the provinces under the Republic; now
they were elaborated and systematized. Confiscations became a stand-
ard feature of the empire's economic and political life. General
taxation was bulwarked by the periodic registration of the popula-
tion, which under Augustus became regular administrative proce-
dure.22 Initiating the great nonhydraulic constructions that are still
associated with the name of Rome, Augustus started to build a truly
agromanagerial system of roads. He established the state post, the
a. Of course, the Roman metropolis was not hermetically sealed off from its Oriental
environment. The growing influence of Hellenistic statecraft was significantly accom-
panied by the growing influence of Eastern religion, art, technology, and customs. The
advance of a Hellenistically Oriental culture and the pathetic attempts to resist it are
among the most illuminating developments of the 2d and ist centuries b.c. (see Voigt,
1893: passim).
b. At this time the Roman statesmen began "to look for guidance not to Athens or
Sparta but to the Persian Empire and the Hellenistic monarchies which succeeded it"
(Stevenson, 1934: 183).
CHAPTER 6, E 211
cursus publicus, and very consistently, he combined it with an elabo-
rate intelligence service.23
These steps were supplemented by such developments as the em-
ployment of former slaves, "freedmen," in the service of the state,2*
the use of eunuchs for political purposes,25 the worship of the em-
peror, and the gradual decay of independent commercial and indus-
trial enterprise. Long before the close of the 2d century a.d., when
Septimius Severus through wholesale slaughter and confiscation
made the despotic center the "owner of most of the good arable
land throughout the empire," 2e the old society had lost its identity.
It was only logical that the "Semitic emperor," who despised Italy
and "spoke Latin with a Punic accent," 2T wanted to be called do-
minus, "master." c
Thus when Diocletian established a spectacularly Eastern court,
the actual Orientalization of the empire had already been accom-
plished. A prominent economic historian summarizes the great trans-
formation as follows: "In the second and third centuries . . . not
only was the State (or the emperor) the largest landed proprietor, it
was also the biggest owner of mines and quarries, and in course of
time came to be the greatest industrialist." 28 Furthermore, "trade —
wholesale and retail — became increasingly subject to governmental
control" 29 and "transport was also largely nationalized." 80 In this
single-centered economic setting, "the idea of the omnipotence of
the State" evolved readily. It took shape essentially "under the influ-
ence of orientalizing-hellenistic and other theories of the State." The
wholesale "replacement of one economic system by the other, and
the substitution of a new civilization and attitude to life for the old
took more than a century and a half. It was completed by the end
of the third century." 31
A comparative analysis of the Orientalization of the Roman Em-
pire leads to certain basic conclusions:
1) The institutional meaning of this process appears clearly only
if its study is based on the understanding of hydraulic society and
agromanagerial (Oriental) despotism.
2) Hellenization means Orientalization. The Hellenization of
Rome started almost two hundred years before the establishment of
the principate.
c. "It was as if the spirit of ancient Assyria had taken possession of the palace to
make the Empire subject to a bureaucracy which should be the executive of a divine
authority transmitted through a dynastic succession. In such a system there would be
no place for a Senate or for the principle of delegation by the State, and it was a sign
that this notion of government now tended to prevail that the title dominus came
to be generally applied to the emperor" (Miller, 1939: 35).
212 CORE, MARGIN, AND SUBMARGIN
3) As a societal type, imperial Rome must be equated not with
the proto-industrial absolutisms of the West, but with the great agro-
managerial absolutisms of the East,
11. THE FALL OF AGROM ANAGERIAL DESPOTISM IN
WESTERN ROME
Different from the absolutist rulers of post-Medieval Europe, the
Roman administrators of Spain, Gaul, Western Germany, and Eng-
land were not restricted by nationally organized property-based
corporations (estates). And although they preserved as far as possible
the indigenous political leadership and culture, they operated the
political apparatus in accordance with the great traditions of agro-
managerial statecraft. As elsewhere, they created huge nonhydraulic
constructions, primarily state roads and frontier walls. By means of
their state post they monopolized quick communications. And they
counted and taxed the inhabitants of the Western provinces in much
the same way as they did in the East.32
No innate Iberian, Celtic, or Germanic urge for freedom kept the
ancestors of modern Western Europe from accepting — at first under
coercion but later as a matter of course — the yoke of a state which
gave the nongovernmental forces of society little chance to participate
in shaping their political and economic fate. Over several centuries
Oriental despotism in its Hellenistic-Roman form spread into the
woodlands of Germany, to the Atlantic shores of Spain and Gaul, and
to the southern borders of Scotland.
These Eastern institutions did not disappear when, in the 4th
century, Western Rome, for all practical purposes, became inde-
pendent of the hydraulic East. The despotic state, which had tolerated
no strong and organized proprietary classes — although it did tolerate
large property of all kinds — continued to reproduce itself even after
its managerial and bureaucratic apparatus shrank. Indeed, until the
end, the government of Western Rome insisted upon its absolutist
position. Its last prominent political figure, Heraclius, was a typical
representative of hydraulic statecraft, a eunuch.33
As in Late Byzantium, the decline of Western Rome was largely
due to external factors. The loss of revenue from the wealthy eastern
provinces seriously weakened the Italian metropolis, which was also
having great difficulty in adjusting itself to the collapse of its slave
economy. The East, being agriculturally more intensive, never had
relied on slave labor as had the West. And consequently the West
suffered severely when the sources of cheap slave labor dried up.
CHAPTER 6, E 213
The political impotence of Rome became blatantly apparent at
the beginning of the 5th century: Rome lost Gaul in 406, England in
407, Spain in 415, and Africa in 429. Within the truncated metropolis,
the forces of big landed property, as represented by a new senatorial
group, increased in importance. However, the emerging proprietary
leaders lacked the strength to set up a non-Oriental type of govern-
ment. This objective was achieved only when they joined the Ger-
manic king, Odovacar, who in 476 formally terminated the worn-out
absolutism of Western Rome.34
c. Europe after 476
i. UNSUCCESSFUL ATTEMPTS TO RULE ABSOLUTELY
Certain symbols of hydraulic statecraft, such as the vassals' obliga-
tion to kiss the sovereign's foot, persisted for a considerable time,
even outlasting the Merovingian period; 35 but lacking substantial
societal foundations, they eventually ceased to be invoked. And the
political development, instead of following the Roman model, pro-
duced the decentralized protofeudal system of government which
characterized the first period of the Middle Ages.
36
11. THE UNPARALLELED" CASE OF THE DOMESDAY
BOOK
In this period, which is assumed to have lasted until the end of the
12 th century,37 there appeared in 1086 the Domesday Book, a register
of the lands of England, which was ordered in 1085 by the Norman
king, William the Conqueror. European historians have indicated
institutional roots of the Domesday both in England38 and Nor-
mandy.39 But while these roots are entirely authentic, they do not
adequately explain the great English-Norman land register. Not
only was this type of public cadaster unknown in the area from which
William and his men came ("Normandy had no Domesday and no
dooms"),40 but it was also unknown in other parts of non-Oriental
Europe. According to Maitland, it represents "an exploit which has
no parallel in the history of Europe." 41
What then inspired this unparalleled achievement? Conquest,
which Maitland suggests,42 provides no plausible explanation, since
Medieval Europe saw many conquests but only one Domesday Book.
The Normans of Normandy are a case in point. They did not, to
our knowledge, institute a Domesday, but they certainly settled in
the north of France through conquest. Could it be that by 1085
214 CORE, MARGIN, AND SUBMARGIN
the Normans had become familiar with administrative methods
which were unknown to them in the 10th or even in the earlier
part of the nth century?
When in 1066 the Normans conquered England, some of their
countrymen had already set themselves up as the masters of southern
Italy, an area which, with interruptions, had been under Byzantine
administration until this date; and some of them had established a
foothold in Sicily, an area which had been ruled by Byzantium for
three hundred years and after that by the Saracens, who combined
Arab and Byzantine techniques of absolutist government.
We have no conclusive evidence regarding the effect of this By-
zantine-Saracen experience on William and his councilors. But we
know that in 1072 — that is, thirteen years before William ordered
the descriptio of England — the Normans had conquered the capital
of Sicily, Palermo, and the northern half of the island. And we also
know that there were considerable "comings and goings" 43 between
the Italian-Sicilian Normans and their cousins in Normandy and
England, particularly among the nobility and clergy. The latter hap-
pened also to be actively engaged in administrative work.44 No won-
der, then, that on the basis of his knowledge of the period Haskins,
the leading English expert on English-Sicilian relations in the Middle
Ages, suggests "the possibility of a connexion between Domesday
Book and the fiscal registers which the south had inherited from its
Byzantine and Saracen rulers." 45
Haskins' hypothesis explains well why a typically hydraulic device
of fiscal administration appeared in feudal Europe. It also explains
why for hundreds of years afterward this "magnificent exploit" had
no parallel in that area. Evidently, systematic and nationwide registra-
tion was as out of place in feudal society as it was customary in the
realm of Oriental despotism.
d. Spain
i. ORIENTAL CONQUEST
But neither the failure of the Frankish attempts nor the singularity
of the English Domesday implies that after 476 the institutional
divide between the hydraulic and nonhydraulic parts of Europe re-
mained fixed. The history of southern Italy and Sicily prior to the
Normans reveals two major forces of Eastern expansion: the By-
zantines, who tried to uphold their way of government in certain
former provinces of the Roman empire, and, far more significantly,
the Arabs, who, inspired by a dynamic new creed and equipped with
CHAPTER 6, E 215
new methods of warfare,46 extended their power from the Near Eastern
centers of hydraulic society throughout Northwest Africa, Spain, and
— temporarily — Sicily.
This colossal eruption resembled the westward growth of the
Roman empire in that it, too, spread Orientally despotic patterns of
government. But for a variety of reasons the institutional effects of
the Islamic conquest were much more far-reaching. Under Roman
influence Western Europe became part of a loosely hydraulic Oriental
society without, however, adopting hydraulic agriculture; and eventu-
ally it returned to a submarginally hydraulic or altogether non-
hydraulic position. Under the influence of the Arabs, the swing was
considerably greater. Prior to the Islamic invasion, the Iberian
peninsula was the home of a protofeudal civilization, which had
small-scale irrigation agriculture but probably few hydraulic enter-
prises/ In sharp contrast to the Romans, who seized Western Europe,
the Arab conquerors of Spain were entirely familiar with hydraulic
agriculture, and in their new habitat they eagerly employed devices
that had been extremely profitable in the countries of their origin.
Under Muslim rule "artificial irrigation . . . was improved and ex-
tended ... on Oriental models," and this included government
management: "its superintendence was the business of the state." "
Thus Moorish Spain became more than marginally Oriental. It
became a genuine hydraulic society, ruled despotically by appointed
officials 48 and taxed by agromanagerial methods of acquisition. The
Moorish army, which soon changed from a tribal to a "mercenary"
body,49 was as definitely the tool of the state as were its counterparts
in the Umayyad and Abbassid caliphates. A protoscientific system
of irrigation and gardening 50 was supplemented by an extraordinary
advance in the typically hydraulic sciences of astronomy and mathe-
matics.51 Contemporary feudal Europe could boast of no comparable
development. Reconstructing the impressions of the great Arab geog-
rapher, Ibn Hauqal, who visited Spain in the 10th century, Dozy
comments on the organizational power of the Muslim state, whose
police, like its hydraulic agriculture, penetrated the most remote
parts of the country: "The foreigner noticed with admiration the
universally well cultivated fields and a hydraulic system, which was
coordinated in such a profoundly scientific manner that it created
fertility in the seemingly least rewarding soils. He marvelled at the
perfect order that, thanks to the vigilant police, reigned even in
the least accessible districts." 52
d. Hirth, 1928: 57 ff.; Hall, 1886: 363, 365; Levi-Provencal, 1932: 166; Laborde, 1808:
29, 107. Laborde's memoir claims complete lack of agricultural interest for the Gothic
conquerors of Spain (Laborde, 1808: 107).
2i6 CORE, MARGIN, AND SUBMARGIN
In the second half of the 14th century the leading town of the
Hanseatic League, Liibeck, numbered 22,000 inhabitants,53 and Lon-
don about 35,ooo.54 At the height of the Western caliphate the
Moorish capital, Cordoba, may have harbored a million persons,55
and Seville in 1 248 more than 30o,ooo.56 At the close of the Muslim
period Granada was probably at least as populous. The Encyclopedia
of Islam estimates the dwellers of this beautiful last Islamic capital
in Spain at "half a million." 57
No wonder then that the absolutist state, at the peak of its pros-
perity, collected a stupendous revenue.58 And no wonder either that
this state, which like other hydraulic regimes freely used eunuchs,69
was ruthless in purging dignitaries who fell from favor. When these
unfortunates were liquidated, the state was quick to confiscate what-
ever property they possessed
60
11. THE RECONQUISTA
The reconquista, which in the 13th century reestablished Chris-
tian control over the greater part of Spain, transformed a great
hydraulic civilization into a late feudal society. Students of Russia,
who see the rise of an Orientally despotic state in Muscovy as the
consequence of an armed struggle against powerful Eastern enemies,
will do well to compare the Russian story with what happened in
Spain — and for that matter, in Austria.
To begin with the latter country. For several centuries, Austria
was threatened by one of the greatest Oriental empires known to
history: Ottoman Turkey; and extended parts of Hungary were oc-
cupied by the Turks for more than one hundred and fifty years.
But the main political and military base of the counterattack, Austria,
remained free; and the protracted struggle against the mighty Eastern
foe did not convert the Austrian state into an Oriental despotism.
Like other countries of Europe, Austria advanced toward a definitely
Western type of absolutism: until the middle of the 18th century the
Austrian diets (Landtage) had a decisive voice concerning taxation
and the drafting of soldiers,61 and even after 1740 the estates played
an essential role in the fiscal administration.62 Hungary stubbornly
maintained a semi-autonomous government, whose Landtag, con-
sisting of an upper house (clerical and secular magnates) and a lower
house (lower nobles and urban deputies), "exerted a great influence
on the country's administration." 63
In Spain, too, the base of the Reconquest was never Orientalized.
The rulers of the small northern states that had withstood the Arab
onslaught depended for their military strength on the support of the
CHAPTER 6, E 217
nobles, the clergy, and the towns; 64 and at the end of the main phase
of the Reconquest these groups, far from being politically pulverized,
were able, because of their privileges, to maintain a semi-autonomous
existence.65 Similar to the development in late feudal and postfeudal
France, England, Germany, Italy, and Scandinavia, Spain also de-
veloped an absolutist government.66 This government was strong
enough to prevail over the nobles, the Church, and the towns; 6T but
it was unable to wipe out the entailed aristocratic landholdings 68 and
the semi-autonomy of the Church; and it was unable to break the
pride and dignity of the Spanish people. The estates of Aragon that
had declared the recognition of their privileges to be the condition
of their homage to the king ("si no, no.") repeated this daring formula
again in 1462,69 that is, more than a hundred years after the greater
part of the Peninsula had been reconquered. And although the as-
semblies (cortes), which in Castille essentially represented the free
municipalities, had ceased to exist in 1665, the absolutist regime failed
to instill in its subjects the submissive attitude habitual under hy-
draulic regimes.
To state this is not to deny the extraordinary strength of Spanish
absolutism. This phenomenon may at least in part be explained by
the exigencies of the Reconquest "frontier," which enhanced the
growth of royal authority in Catalonia, Navarre, and Aragon.70 How-
ever, the Wirtschaftsgesinnung of the Christian kings may have been
even more decisive. The northern base of the Reconquest greatly
favored pastoralism; and the European demand for wool — which in-
creased with the advance of the Reconquest 71 — led the Spanish kings
one-sidedly to promote sheep breeding also in the liberated areas
of central Spain, and even in parts of southern Spain.72 While the
kings gave all manner of privileges to the towns and nobles, they
established a tight fiscal and jurisdictional control over the sheep
breeders, who, from the 13 th century on, were combined in a special
organization, the Mesta.73
In Spain, as in England, the sheep "ate" the people. But Spain
differed from England in that, almost from the beginning, the princes
profited enormously from the rapidly expanding pastoral economy.
State revenues from this source were large.74 Eventually the monarchs
considered "the exploitation and conservation of the pastoral in-
dustry . . . the principal sustenance of these kingdoms." 75
The huge revenues which the Crown received from its colonial
empire have frequently been held responsible for the decline of the
Spanish population in the 16th century/ However, the depopulation
e. Seville, which in 1247 ^a<^ over 3°°»000 inhabitants, numbered in the 16th century
200,000. Cordoba, which under the caliphs may have harbored a million people, now
2i8 CORE, MARGIN, AND SUBMARGIN
of the villages, which certainly was a major cause for the depopula-
tion of the cities, cannot be satisfactorily explained thus, since the
influx of gold and silver would have enabled the enriched towns-
people to buy more rather than fewer rural products.
In all probability the downward trend was caused primarily by the
replacement of labor-intensive irrigation farming by labor-extensive
cattle breeding. This development, stimulated by the soaring export
of wool/ led to the promulgation of the Leyes de Toro, which com-
pleted the "subjection of agriculture to large scale pasturage" 76 four-
teen years before Cortez took Mexico and twenty-eight years before
Pizarro took Cuzco. And it also accounts for the great reduction in
the Indian farming population in post-Conquest Mexico, Yucatan,
and Peru."
In the Spanish countryside, herds and herders now made their
numbered 60,000 (Laborde, 1808: 9). The population of Granada decreased from per-
haps 500,000 to 80,000 (see above, and Laborde, 1808: 9). These decreases resulted in
part from military destruction; but in part they express the transformation of the
rural order. Some sections of the countryside never recovered from the pestilence
and the Reconquest (Klein, 1920: 337). Others were allowed to lie fallow during the
16th and 17th centuries (ibid.: 320, 342 ft.), until the formerly flourishing fields were
"smitten with the curse of barrenness" (Prescott, 1838, III: 461, n. 85), because sheep
breeding had been allowed "to run riot throughout the land and to annihilate almost
the last vestiges of agriculture that still remained" (Klein, 1920: 343).
The known ruins of former settlements in Catalonia, Aragon, Leon, Valencia, Mancha,
Castille, etc. numbered more than 1141. The region of the Guadalquivir had boasted
1200 villages under the Caliph of Cordoba. In 1800 only 200 survived. Of the fifty
villages of Malaga, only sixteen were left. One section of the diocese of Salamanca had
only 333 villages out of its former 748, while of 127 villages which existed near des
partidos de Banos pena del rey only thirteen remained (Laborde, 1808: 8). The area
of the kingdom of Granada that prior to 1492 had supported three million people
numbered only 661,000 by 1800 (ibid.: 9).
/. The rise continued until the latter part of the 16th century (Klein, 1920: 37-46).
g. Ships were small and freight expensive; and nothing much was to be gained
by exporting grain to Europe. Silver was the most highly prized export article; but
handsome profits could also be made in sugar and cacao, dyewoods, dyestuffs, and hides
(Humboldt, 1811, IV: 368 ff.). Within a few decades "oxen, horses, sheep, and pigs
multiplied to a surprising degree in all parts of New Spain" (ibid., Ill: 224). By 1570,
when Acosta arrived in America, some individuals owned as many as 70,000 and even
100,000 sheep (Acosta, 1894, I: 418; Obregon, 1928: 151). Wherever the increase of
cattle was not checked, the herds grew rapidly, not only in Central America but
also in the Southwest of North America (Obregon, 1928: 151), in Peru (cf. Markham,
1892: 163; see also Juan and Ulloa, 1806, I: 300, 318, and passim), and in Yucatan
(Shattuck, Redfield, and MacKay, 1933: 15). When Cortez set up a princely estate in
Oaxaca, he at once "imported large numbers of merino sheep and other cattle, which
found abundant pastures in the country around Tehuantepec" (Prescott, 1936: 671).
Consistently, it was Cortez who in the New World organized a Mesta patterned after
the Mesta of Castille (Mendoza, 1854: 225).
CHAPTER 6, E 219
lonely way over vast grasslands. It was in this landscape that Don
Quixote urged on his stumbling nag. And in the cities no spectacle
was so popular as the bullfight. In Valladolid, in 1527, Charles V
celebrated the birth of his son, Philip II, by himself entering the
ring to challenge the bull.
e. The Introduction of Oriental Despotism into Russia
"The Tatars had nothing in common with the Moors. When they
conquered Russia, they gave her neither algebra nor Aristotle."
Pushkin was doubtless correct in lamenting the negative cultural
consequence of the Tatar h conquest. He might have gone even
further and noted the devastating political consequences of their
fabulous military success. The Tatars, who by 1240 had crushingly
defeated the Eastern Slavs, controlled their new subjects so effectively
that no independent Russian power undertook to liberate them.
Nor did any internal Russian force engage in a systematic and
open struggle against the Horde. The isolated military victory at
the Don River, which the Grand Duke of Moscow, Dmitry, won
over a Tatar army in 1380, backfired sadly: the subsequent reprisals
discouraged armed resistance for another hundred years.1 Even when,
in 1480, Ivan III refused allegiance to the enfeebled Tatars, he
avoided battling against them. The Tatars, while still able to lead
an army against the Muscovite host, were equally reluctant. Inde-
cision on both sides resulted in "an unbelievable spectacle: two
armies fleeing from each other without being pursued by anyone."
To quote Karamsin further: "So ended this last invasion of the
Tatars." >
So indeed ended Tatar rule over Russia. It had lasted for almost
two hundred and fifty years; and the Grand Duchy of Muscovy, which
rose to prominence during this period, did so not as an independent
force but as the instrument of the Khan.
h. The name "Tatar" originally referred to peoples living in the eastern part of
Inner Asia (see Wittfogel and Feng, 1949: 101 ff.). After the great expansion of Mongol
power during the 13th century, the name began, in Eastern Europe, to denote those
Mongols and Turks who together formed the core of the Golden Horde. Merging
with older Turkish and Finnish groups, these "Tatars" spoke Turkish, a language
which by then had become the most important ethnic and cultural trait of the
westernmost sector of the Mongol world (Spuler, 1943: 1 1 n.). In the present discussion
the terms "Tatar" and "Mongol" are used interchangeably to designate the people
of the Golden Horde.
1. After 1380 the leading principality, Muscovy, "for the time being did not think
of fighting the Tatars" (Kliuchevskii, Kurs, II: so).
j. Karamsin, HER, VI: 195-6.
220 CORE, MARGIN, AND SUBMARGIN
This fact is not disputed. Nor is it seriously denied that 16th-
century Muscovy cannot be equated with Western absolutism. How-
ever, opinions differ fundamentally concerning the origin of Mus-
covy's despotism. Was Ivan's autocratic control over land and people
due to external conditions, namely to a continually fought-over
frontier? Or was it due primarily to the influence of the Mongols
who in Russia applied despotic methods of statecraft learned in sev-
eral hydraulic countries of Asia, particularly China? /M*
Historians who uphold the "external" interpretation lean heavily
on the authority of the foremost modern Russian historian, Rliu-
chevsky. I fully share the esteem in which he is held by scholars of the
most diverse opinion; but I find his views on the emergence of Mus-
covite despotism less one-sided than is generally assumed.
True, Kliuchevsky has paid little attention to the Tatar Yoke,*
and his understanding of Oriental despotism is limited."1 But he
j-bis (added to Third Printing). The Mongols were familiar with the organizational
and acquisitive methods of Chinese statecraft when they subdued Russia (1237-40).
Chingis Khan conquered China north of the Yellow River (1211-22) and Turkestan
(1219-20). From 1215 on he had as a top-ranking adviser a Liao-Chinese, Yeh-lii Ch'u-
ts'ai (Wittfogel and Feng 1949: 669 f.), who later also served his son Ogotai (1228-41).
Ogotai completed the conquest of North China in 1234. By 1240 the Mongols had
learned to operate a state post, and they managed in North China census- taking, taxa-
tion, and the corvee (Yuan Shih 2: lb, 2a, 7a; 121: 9a; 146 passim; 191: 2a. Cf. also
Hsin Yuan Shih, chap. 127; Chingis Khan's Yasa and The Secret History of the
Mongols). In the 1240's Carpini observed the state post and the taking of a preliminary
census in Mongol-dominated Russia. In 1253 the Great Khan, Mongke, ordered a certain
Pieh-erh-ke (Berke?) to take a census in Russia (Yuan Shih 3: 4b). Russian sources report
that this was done in 1257; and they mention for 1259 a Mongol census-taker, "Berkai"
(Karamsin, HER, IV: 91, 94; E. Bretschneider, Mediaeval Researches, London, 1910. II:
80). The Great Khan's jurisdiction over the Golden Horde lasted until 1259 (Spuler
1943: 41 f. and 252), that is, throughout the formative years of the Tatar Yoke.
k. Florinsky criticizes him for suggesting that when studying the political organiza-
tion of northeastern Russia, one "should forget for a time . . . that Russia was con-
quered by the Tartars" (Florinsky, 1953, I: 78); and Vernadsky (1953: 333 ff.) notes
that except for "a few general remarks on the importance of the khans' policies for
the unification of Russia . . . [Kliuchevsky] paid little attention to the Mongols."
m. Kliuchevsky was not too familiar with the institutions of Oriental society and
with such of its variants as traditional China. Otherwise he would not have contrasted
the service-based class system of Muscovite Russia and the conditions of Oriental
despotism (Kluchevsky, HR, III: 52). In another context, however, he notes the
similarities in the Muscovite methods of liquidating potentially dangerous relatives
and methods of Oriental despotism in like situations (ibid., II: 88). And his description
of state service and land tenure in post-Mongol Russia clearly indicates institutional
affinities to Ottoman Turkey and Muslim India. His discussion of Peter's efforts to de-
velop industry is a major contribution to our understanding of the Russian version of
an agrobureaucratic despotism. The omnipotent state, based on enforced service and
claiming ultimate control over all land, has also been viewed as a key element of
CHAPTER 6, E 221
was too great a student to overlook the crucial institutional changes
which,' under Tatar rule and because of it, occurred in Russia's state
and society. According to his own account, these changes definitely
preceded the rise of the "frontier," with whose formative role he
is so impressed.
Indeed, Kliuchevsky, in his "frontier" thesis, deals essentially with
the post-Tatar period. He describes the changes involved in the
recruiting of "a numerous military-official class" as being closely
connected with "the territorial expansion of the empire," whose new
frontiers had "placed the state in direct contact with such external
and alien foes of Russia as the Swedes, the Lithuanians, the Poles,
and Tatars. This direct contact had put the state in such a position
that it had come to resemble an armed camp surrounded on three
sides by enemies." 77 Manifestly, the Tatars of whom Kliuchevsky is
speaking are those that confronted 16th-century Muscovy, and the
frontier of which they form a part is the 1 6th-century frontier. Kliu-
chevsky says so expressly,78 and several times he refers specifically to
the years from 1492 to 1595.™
In view of these facts we cannot help feeling that Kliuchevsky's
"frontier" thesis raises more questions than it answers. Why should
a non-Oriental Russia evolve into an en forced-service despotism, be-
cause Russia was fighting such Western countries as Sweden, Lith-
uania, and Poland? Many European governments dealt with compa-
rable enemies without establishing Orientally despotic patterns of
control over land and people. Or why should a non-Oriental Russia
become Orientally despotic when the Oriental forces she was com-
bating were, relatively speaking, no stronger than the Turks, with
whom the Austrians and Hungarians fought, or the Moors, with
whom the Spanish reconquerors were engaged in a life and death
struggle? Neither Hungary and Austria nor Spain became Orientally
despotic because of their Oriental "frontier." We may therefore
well ask: Could the Muscovite development of the 16th century have
occurred because Russia, prior to this period and as the result of
her long subjection to Oriental domination, had already taken de-
cisive organizational and acquisitive steps in the direction of a des-
potic "service" state?
Kliuchevsky's frame of reference prevents him from giving a con-
sistent answer to these questions. But it is amazing how far his account
Tsarist society by Sumner, who considers Tsarism to be rooted in the "ideas and
ritual" of Byzantium and "the fact and practice of the Tatar khans." Elaborating this
point, Sumner observes that it was under the influence of the Golden Horde rather
than "far-away Byzantine administration" that the Muscovite government and military
system originated (Sumner, 1949: 82 f.).
222 CORE, MARGIN, AND SUBMARGIN
of 13th-, 14th-, and 15th-century Russia goes in affirming the socio-
historical significance of the Tatar period.
According to Kliuchevsky, it was during this period that the
towns, which had played a prominent role in Kievan Russia,80 lost,
with a few exceptions (Novgorod, Pskov), their political impor-
tance; 81 and it was in this period that the territorial princes and in-
dependent boyars, after a temporary improvement in their conditions,
were sharply curbed by the grand dukes of Muscovy. Many princes
became the serving men of Muscovy, whose new prince-officials by
1500 "overlaid, if they did not crush, the older stratum of Muscovite
non-titled boyars." 82
Why did this happen? In the matter of the political emasculation
of the towns, Kliuchevsky shuts his eyes to the effects of Tatar rule,"
which were pointed out earlier by Karamsin.0 In the matter of the
fate of the boyars and territorial princes, he recognizes that Tatar
power enabled Muscovy to subdue them.
Kliuchevsky is aware that for more than two generations the Tatars
operated the fiscal organization that they had erected in Russia:
"After their conquest of Rus, the Tartars themselves first collected
the tribute they imposed on Rus." 8S He is also aware that political
and jurisdictional power accrued to Moscow when, in 1328, the
Khan transferred this function to his Muscovite deputy: "The simple
trustee-agent in charge of collecting and delivering the tribute of
the Khan, the Prince of Moscow, was then made plenipotentiary
leader and judge of the Russian princes." Subsequently the Khan's
commission became "a powerful instrument for the political unifica-
tion of the territorial states of Rus." 8*
In all these instances, Tatar influence is clear. It becomes still
more impressive when we recognize the bureaucratic innovations that
accompanied the political change. Kliuchevsky knows that the meth-
ods of registering land and tax payers which were used throughout
n. Kliuchevsky views this development as the result of the colonization of northern
Russia (Kluchevsky, HR, I: 269). "Rus" did indeed expand northward, but this is only
half the story. In Western Europe many towns, which were founded by princes or
feudal lords, emancipated themselves. Why was it that in 13th- and 14th-century
Russia princely authority grew at the expense of the towns? And why did the veche
cease to function, even where it had previously prevailed?
o. Karamsin (HER, V: 451) ascribes the change to the increased authority with
which the princes were endowed by the Tatars. Recently Vernadsky noted that "the
destruction of most of the major cities of East Russia during the Mongol invasion"
was followed by an equally devastating, and even more successful, political campaign
against the towns and that in this campaign the Russian princes and boyars supported
their Mongol masters. In the middle 14th century, the veche "had ceased to function
normally in most East Russian cities and could be discounted as an element of
government" (Vernadsky, 195$: 345).
CHAPTER 6, E 223
the 16th and 17th centuries85 had existed at the close of the 15th
century and long before." He knows that after the conquest of Russia
the Tatars "during the first thirty-five years of the Yoke three times
took a census, chislo, of the entire Russia people, with the exception
of the clergy, by means of chislenniki [census takers] sent from the
Horde." 86 Subsequent studies have thrown additional light on the
original Tatar organization,87 which may have served military as well
as fiscal purposes.88 Vernadsky plausibly suggests that "it was on the
basis of the Mongol patterns that the grand ducal system of taxation
and army organization was developed in the late 14th to 16th cen-
turies." 89 His conclusion elaborates what Kliuchevsky had intimated
fifty years before.
When describing the state post of 16th-century Moscow,90 Kliu-
chevsky does not expressly connect it with earlier developments. But
his remark, "the Jamskoi prikaz, the Department of Posts, which
was known from the beginning of the 16th century," 91 in all likeli-
hood points to Ivan III,92 that is, to the close of the Tatar period.
Other scholars have connected the postal system, yam, which the
Tatars maintained in Russia,93 with the Muscovite institution of the
same name.9
The rise of Muscovite despotism coincides with the rise of the new
type of civil and military serving men, who, as temporary holders of
state land (pomestye), were unconditionally and unlimitedly at the
disposal of their supreme lord. From the later part of the 14th century
on, the grand dukes of Muscovy began to reduce the territorial
princes to the position of serving men; 94 and in the 15th century
they assigned office land — which was previously given only to unfree
retainers 95 — to free serving men as well, mainly to warriors but
also to civil ("court") officials.96 Kliuchevsky is fully cognizant that
this type of compulsory service differs from the conditions of Western
Europe; 97 and it is therefore not surprising that in his discussion
of the legal principles involved in the institution of the pomestye
p. Kluchevsky, HR, III: 228. The Tatar origin of the Muscovite system of census
taking has been stressed among others by Miljukov (1898: 128) and Kulischer (1925:
404), the latter of whom, not without reason, assumes ultimate Chinese influence.
q. Bruckner, 1896: 521 ff.; Milukow, 1898: 81; Kulischer, 1925: 405; Grekov, 1939:
216 ff. The Altaic term yam, "post," and jamti, "postmaster" (Spuler, 1943: 412)
appeared in Russian as jam and jamshchik (Briickner, 1896: 503, 522). During the
Mongol period, "the yam was a special tax for the upkeep of post-horse stations"
(Vernadsky, 1953: 221). When in the early part of the 16th century Herberstein used
the Muscovite state post, he had relay horses assigned to him "by the post-master, who
in their language is called 'jamschnik* [sic!]." The relay stations were called "jama"
(Herberstein, NR, I: 108). In the 16th century the Postal Chancellery was first called
jamskaja izba, then jamskoj prikaz (Staden, 1930: 13, n. 4; cf. 15, 59).
224 CORE, MARGIN, AND SUBMARGTN
he considers only two roots, both Oriental: Byzantium and the Tatar
Horde. Rejecting the former, he is left with the Tatar alternative,
suggested by Gradovski. According to this view, "the idea of the
prince as the supreme landowner originated only during the Mongol
period. As representatives of the authority of the Khan, the Russian
princes enjoyed, in their territories, the same rights as the Khan
himself enjoyed in all the territory under his rule. Later the Russian
princes inherited these state rights from the Khan completely; and
this shattered the incipient private ownership of land." 98
It is characteristic for Kliuchevsky's ambivalence toward the Tatar
issue that he fails to verbalize what, from the standpoint of his own
premises, is the only logical conclusion. But he does not hesitate to
stress the rapid growth of the pomestye institution at the close of the
Tatar period. Evidently, "traces of an intensive and systematic dis-
tribution of public land in pomestye tenure can already be found
during the second half of the 15th century." " The Muscovite princes
established pomestye lands on a large scale first in newly conquered
territories such as Novgorod; but in the early 16th century "a great
development of pomestye tenure" also took place in the vicinity of
Moscow.100
The comparative economic historian, Kovalevsky, expressly claimed
a Tatar origin for the fateful institution: "It is a fact that prior to
the 15th century we never hear of Russian princes paying for services
except by the distribution of money and objects taken as war loot,
whereas the assignment of military tenures under the name of iktaa
was known in the entire Mohammedan world and especially among
the Tatars for centuries prior to the appearance of this practice in
Muscovy. These considerations led the author to state that this kind
of practice was introduced to Muscovy and the other Russian prin-
cipalities through the imitation of the Tatar khanates." 101 Vernadsky
does not claim a direct link; but he too calls the Mongol age the
"incubation period" of the pomestye system.102
In view of these facts it is hard to reject Vernadsky's conclusion
that in the days of the Tatars the old free society of Kievan Russia
was "persistently chipped away without at first affecting the facade,"
and that when Ivan III broke with the Horde, "the framework of
the new structure was all but ready and the new order, that of a
service-bound society, became clearly noticeable." 103
It became clearly noticeable indeed. And a few decades after Ivan's
death, the forces of despotism had gained sufficient strength to destroy
ruthlessly the obsolete facade. The time lag between incubation and
maturation reflects the contradictory interests of the Tatars, who
wanted their Muscovite agency to be sufficiently strong to carry
CHAPTER 6, F 225
out the will of the Khan but not strong enough to override it. With-
out foreseeing the ultimate consequences of their action, they built
an institutional time bomb/ which remained under control during
their rule but which started to explode when the "Yoke" collapsed.
Byzantium's influence on Kievan Russia was great, but it was
primarily cultural. Like China's influence on Japan, it did not seri-
ously alter the conditions of power, class, and property. Ottoman
Turkey's influence on 16th-century Russia stimulated a regime that
was already Orientally despotic,104 but it did not bring it into being.
Tatar rule alone among the three major Oriental influences affecting
Russia was decisive both in destroying the non-Oriental Kievan
society and in laying the foundations for the despotic state of Mus-
covite and post-Muscovite Russia.
F. STRUCTURE AND CHANGE IN THE DENSITY
PATTERNS OF THE ORIENTAL WORLD
Thus Greece, Rome, Spain, and Russia all crossed the institutional
divide. In Greece, Rome, and Spain the pendulum swung back and
forth. In Tsarist Russia the reverse movement (away from a despotic
state) came close to bringing the country back into the Western orbit.
The changes that occurred in each of these cases were enormous;
but their character cannot be clearly understood unless the affected
institutional structures are clearly defined. Our analysis has tried
to do this. Approaching both structure and change from the stand-
point of varying hydraulic and bureaucratic density, we can draw
the following major conclusions.
1. Structure
a. Density Subtypes of Hydraulic Society
There are two subtypes of hydraulically compact areas: one with
economically predominant and continuous hydraulic systems (Com-
pact 1), the other with economically predominant but discontinuous
hydraulic systems (Compact 2). There are two subtypes of hydrau-
lically loose areas: one with an organizationally predominant hy-
draulic system, which comprises major and regionally compact
hydraulic units (Loose 1), the other without major compact units
(Loose 2). And there are two subtypes of the margin of hydraulic
society: one containing conspicuous hydraulic elements (Margin 1),
the other lacking such elements (Margin 2). A seventh subtype, the
submargin, belongs to the fringe of the hydraulic world, because its
r. Vernadsky (1953: 335) appropriately speaks of "influence through delayed action."
226 CORE, MARGIN, AND SUBMARGIN
representatives employ conspicuous elements of Orientally despotic
statecraft. But since its dominant institutions are of a definitely non-
hydraulic character, it must be placed on the outer fringe of this
world.
b. Differing Frequencies of Occurrence
The hydraulically densest subtypes of hydraulic society, Compact 1
and 2, are not the most frequent ones. Nor can the other subtypes
be called less "advanced," if this term is meant to imply that eventu-
ally and necessarily they will become compact. Among the historically
prominent hydraulic societies, and particularly among their larger
representatives, the compact patterns are more the exception than
the rule.
c. Decreasing Importance of Hydraulic Economy Proper
The decreasing importance of hydraulic economy proper becomes
clearly apparent when the agromanagerial world is viewed in its
spatial and temporal entirety. There is little doubt that representa-
tives of this world had a greater hydraulic density during their forma-
tive and primary phase than during their later and secondary develop-
ments.
In the formative phase, relatively small hydraulic commonwealths
arose in semi-arid and arid settings. And if our genetic hypothesis is
correct, we are safe in assuming that while, during this phase, a
number of marginal hydraulic societies originated through diffusion,
few such societies originated through the disintegration of larger,
loosely hydraulic units, which were then practically nonexistent. The
greatest number of marginal hydraulic societies — both absolutely
and in proportion to the number of hydraulic societies proper — ap-
peared therefore not during the formative phase, but after it.
This developmental peculiarity is accompanied by another which,
although independent of it, aggravates its effects. For reasons which
in the Old World are closely connected with the spread of nomadic
conquest and globally with the lessening of hydraulic concern, hy-
draulic societies proper tend to reduce rather than increase their
hydraulic intensity.
The specific density patterns of industrial and hydraulic society
develop in different ways. The representatives of industrial society
tend to become more industrial without of necessity becoming in-
dustrially compact. Conversely, the representatives of agromanagerial
society seem to reach their highest hydraulic density coefficient during
a relatively early phase of their growth. Afterward they hold their
CHAPTER 6, F 227
own or recede. Taken in its entirety, agromanagerial society ap-
parently "advances" not to higher but to lower levels of hydraulic
density.
2. Capacity for Societal Change
Our density analysis clarifies both structure and change. And it
clarifies change — or lack of change — not only within the same societal
type, but also from one societal type to another.
1) The formation of hydraulic society apparently depends on the
presence of a hydraulic economy proper as an essential condition.
2) The perpetuation of hydraulic society is assured by a plurality
of factors, among which hydraulic enterprise may be of little impor-
tance, except in crises caused by the impact of strong external non-
hydraulic forces.
3) In a given hydraulic area, large government-controlled pro-
ductive and protective water works may serve only a fraction of the
politically dominated territory. The uneven diffusion of institutions
of a given societal order, which characterizes the hydraulic world, also
characterizes modern industrial society. Prior to World War II, the
U. S. A. was an outstanding case of an industrial society. But, at that
time, out of some 3,000 counties only some 200 — that is, about 7 per
cent — were classed as "industrial counties" proper.0
4) The history of hydraulic society records innumerable rebellions
and palace revolutions. But nowhere, to our knowledge, did internal
forces succeed in transforming any single-centered agromanagerial
society into a multicentered society of the Western type.
5) More specifically: neither in the Old nor in the New World did
any great hydraulic civilization proper spontaneously evolve into an
industrial society, as did, under nonhydraulic conditions, the coun-
tries of the post-Medieval West. In the marginal hydraulic civiliza-
tion of Late Byzantium the rise of big private property led only to
societal paralysis. In Russia, after severe attacks from the outside, the
forces of private property (and their concomitant, free labor) pre-
vailed in 1917 for a number of months over the system of despotic
state power.
a. For a detailed account of this phenomenon see The Structure of the American
Economy, Pt. I, Basic Characteristics (Washington, D. C, National Resources Com-
mittee, 1939), p. 47.
CHAPTER 7
ft
atterns of proprietary complexity in
hydraulic society
Not all hydraulic societies comprise independent proprietary forces
of consequence. When such forces are present, they seem to be more
of a threat to the margin than to the hydraulic heartlands, although
even in these latter, strong proprietary developments intensify social
differentiations and periodic political crises.
Hence, an institutional analysis of hydraulic society should deal
not only with the density of its agromanagerial apparatus but also
with the complexity of its proprietary development. Having explored
the major patterns of hydraulic and bureaucratic density, we shall
now examine the major complexity patterns of private property
and enterprise which emerge under the shadow of agromanagerial
despotism.
A. THE HUMAN RELATION CALLED "PROPERTY"
Property is the individual's recognized right to dispose over a
particular object. Like other rights, the right called property involves
more than a relation between a person and a thing. It involves a
relation between the proprietor and other individuals who, through
the former's prerogative, are excluded from disposing over the object
in question.
The relation also involves the representatives of government, who,
on the one hand, share the restrictions placed on the private non-
proprietors and, on the other, are concerned with maintaining the
existing property regulations. Thus in addition to being a legal and
social institution, property is a political phenomenon. And property
rights in different societies, even when they are similar in form, need
not be similar in substance.
Strong property0 develops in a societal order which is so balanced
that the holders of property can dispose over "their" objects with a
maximum of freedom. Weak property develops in a societal order
that is not so balanced.
a. In an incipient form this concept has already been used by Sir Henry Maine in his
Village-Communities (New York, 1889), pp. 158 ft., 221 ff.
228
CHAPTER 7, C 229
The preceding chapters have described those peculiarities of hy-
draulic society which, by making the state inordinately strong, tend
to make private property inordinately weak. Of course, weakness is
not nonexistence. Hydraulic society has given rise to many forms of
private property that, as far as external appearance goes, have their
parallels in other societies. Some of these forms show a different degree
of development in different hydraulic civilizations, and these distinc-
tions are so regular — and so manifest — that we can establish several
subtypes of proprietary (and societal) complexity.
B. OBJECTS OF PROPERTY RIGHTS
The concepts of mobile and immobile property present obvious
difficulties, but they have great advantages for our inquiry. Immobile
property (essentially land) is the basis of private enterprise in the
main branch of hydraulic economy: agriculture; and mobile property
(tools, raw materials, merchandise, money) is the basis of its two
most important secondary branches: industry (handicraft) and com-
merce. Persons, too, may become the object of a proprietary relation.
Like many other institutional conformations, hydraulic society also
knows slavery. But unlike mobile and immobile property, slavery
under agromanagerial despotism does not establish specific patterns
of independent enterprise. We shall discuss the peculiarities of this
type of slavery in the next chapter, which deals with classes.
C. THE POTENTIAL SCOPE OF PROPRIETARY
RIGHTS
A holder of strong property may dispose over his property in a
variety of ways.
He may put his property to whatever use he wants, as long as he
does not interfere with the rights of other members of the common-
wealth. He may employ it actively, either in the economic sphere
(for purposes of subsistence and material gain) or in the sphere of
physical coercion (for purposes of promoting his and his group's
material or political interest); or he may employ it passively, con-
suming it for purposes of maintenance and pleasure. Occasionally
he may decide not to use it at all. He may make a piece of wood into
a bow to serve him in a hunt or raid, or into a digging implement
for farming. He may employ a piece of land for raising what crops
he wishes, or for grazing or hunting, or he may let it lie fallow.
The holder of strong property whose active property produces gains
23O PATTERNS OF PROPRIETARY COMPLEXITY
because he, either alone or with, or through, others, employs it
effectively, is free to enjoy these gains fully. He owns the calf as well
as the cow. He is free to alienate his property at will. And he is free
to determine who shall inherit it when he dies.
D. THREE MAJOR COMPLEXITY PATTERNS IN
HYDRAULIC CIVILIZATIONS
1. Simple, Semicomplex, and Complex Patterns of
Property
The holder of weak property may enjoy only a shadow of these
prerogatives, but this does not destroy his desire to act as freely
as he can. He exercises his modest rights with respect to both mobile
and immobile, passive and active property. In the sphere of mobile
and active property they become institutionally important when
the holders of such property employ it professionally and independ-
ently in industry and commerce. Those who engage in handicraft
or trade take a decisive step forward when they begin to devote
themselves to these pursuits professionally, that is, full time. How-
ever, such an advance effects no major societal change, as long as
the professional craftsmen and traders constitute only a new sub-
section within the class of government functionaries. It is only when
they use their property to operate professionally and independently
that they appear as a new class. The difference is not one of the "mode
of production" — which may not change at all — but of the producers'
and traders' political (and politically conditioned societal) position.
Land is tilled professionally (that is, by peasants who spend most
of their time farming) as soon as agriculture becomes an essential
basis of subsistence. And elements of private (independent) land-
ownership emerge relatively early. But the landowners, who often
do not till their soil themselves, are in many Oriental societies pre-
vented from expanding the sphere of private agrarian property, since
most of the land is, in one way or another, regulated by the govern-
ment. It is only when free (nonregulated) land becomes the dominant
form of land tenure that private landownership becomes a societal
phenomenon comparable to the predominance of independent pro-
fessional handicraft and trade.
Independent active property advances unevenly in its mobile and
immobile sectors. These developmental differences are sufficiently
clear and regular to permit distinction between at least three major
patterns of proprietary complexity in hydraulic society:
1) When independent active property plays a subordinate role
in both its mobile and immobile forms, we are faced with a relatively
CHAPTER 7, D
231
simple pattern of property. We shall call this conformation a simple
hydraulic society.
2) When independent active property develops strongly in in-
dustry and commerce but not in agriculture, we are faced with a
semicomplex pattern of property. We shall call this conformation a
semicomplex hydraulic society.
3) When independent active property develops strongly in industry
and commerce and also in agriculture, we are faced with the most
complex pattern of property to be observed in hydraulic society.
We shall call this conformation a complex hydraulic society.
2. Supplementary Remarks
a. "Simple I" and "Simple 11"
How far can private and independent property advance in industry
and commerce? And when does private ownership in land prevail over
all other forms of land tenure? We shall attempt to answer both
questions when we discuss the peculiarities of semicomplex and
complex configurations of Oriental property.
Another question, however, must be settled first. Are there, within
hydraulic society, conditions under which professional representa-
tives of industry and commerce are altogether absent or, for all prac-
tical purposes, as good as absent? Such conditions do exist indeed.
They occur essentially in hydraulic tribes, which for this and other
reasons represent the most rudimentary variant of a simple hydraulic
society. We distinguish the tribal type of simple hydraulic society,
"Simple I," from the state-centered type of simple hydraulic society,
"Simple II."
Table 4. Patterns of Proprietary Complexity in Hydraulic Society (Schematized)
PATTERNS OF
PROPERTY
SPHERES OF PROPRIETARY DEVELOPMENT
Agriculture Pursued:
Industry and Commerce Pursued:
Simple
I
II
Semicomplex
Complex
Professionally
e'
+
+
+
Predominantly
with Privately
Owned Land
In the Main ' On Basis of Private
Professionally Property and in the
Main ' Independently
+ '
e -
+ e
+ +
Key
-J- Feature conspicuous
1. The meaning of the qualification is explained in
the text, p. 233.
— Feature inconspicuous or absent 2. The circle © indicates a developmentally new
feature.
). Farmer-craftsmen and producer- traders.
232 PATTERNS OF PROPRIETARY COMPLEXITY
b. Proprietary Complexity and Hydraulic Density
Correlations between the patterns of proprietary complexity,
on the one hand, and patterns of hydraulic density, on the other,
are less easily established. The rise of property-based enterprise and
social classes is due to several factors, among which hydraulic density
is only one, and one that in a given area tends to change its quality
very slowly and usually only because of changing relations with other
areas.
This, however, does not imply the absence of significant correla-
tions between hydraulic density and proprietary complexity. Of the
two major evolutionary steps that hydraulic property may take, at
least the first — the transition from a simple to a semicomplex pattern
— may be greatly retarded, if not altogether blocked, when the under-
lying agrarian order is hydraulically compact. Like the correlation
between the rise of a state-centered simple hydraulic society and
the advance of professional industry and commerce, this correlation
will be clarified when we systematically discuss the characteristics of
simple, semicomplex, and complex patterns of Oriental property.
E. NONSPECIFIC AND SPECIFIC ASPECTS IN THE
PROPRIETARY CONDITIONS OF TRIBAL
HYDRAULIC SOCIETIES
l. Nonspecific Aspects
Agricultural tribes handle their property in many different ways;
and this is as true for hydraulic as for nonhydraulic communities.1
In the simpler farming communities of Melanesia, South America,
and Africa "movables are privately owned, but not land."2 Similar
trends are found also among important North American tribes;0
however, in Melanesia and West Africa a more differentiated pat-
tern has made its appearance. "As a rule, land was common property
of the village, but in regard to cultivated land we find the beginnings
of sib, family, or individual ownership." 3
Up to a point conditions of land tenure are similar in hydraulic
tribes. Among the smaller irrigation tribes of equatorial Africa land
can be bought and sold. This is the case among the Suk * and the
Endo.6 Among the En-Jemusi it was originally "marked out by the
chief," but now, when division after the father's death excessively
reduces an allotment, an owner can augment his holdings by pur-
a. The Iroquois have a saying: "Land cannot be bought and sold, any more than
water and fire can" (Lips, 1938: 516).
CHAPTER 7, E 233
chase, as do the Suk; or following the earlier pattern, he may be
given additional fields by his chief.6 In the American Pueblos com-
munal patterns of land tenure prevailed until modern times. In the
Rio Grande area "unused agricultural land reverts to the town, to
be reallotted by Town chief [cacique] or Governor." 7 Among the
hydraulically marginal Hopi a "clan system of land tenure was uni-
versally in vogue"; 8 and the village chief, who was "the theoretical
owner of all the village lands," * asserted his authority "most fre-
quently ... in the settlement of land disputes." 10
Thus in both nonhydraulic and hydraulic small farming com-
munities the forms of land tenure vary; and the tendency toward
communal control is strong but not universal. Corresponding resem-
blances can be discovered also with respect to mobile property.
Weapons as well as tools that are used in hunting and gathering
are usually owned individually by hydraulic tribesmen; but the
objects thus obtained are so perishable that their passing possession
does not favor the development of class distinctions, whatever the
methods of distribution.
Nor, under such conditions, do industry and trade lead to sig-
nificant social differentiations. This is eminently clear with regard
to trade. The exchange of privately owned goods is undertaken
privately; but this does not require special training or full-time
handling. As in the small nonhydraulic farming communities, there
is trade in hydraulic tribes, but there are no professional traders.6
2. Specific Aspects
In industry conditions are not so simple. Property-based crafts are
practiced primarily to satisfy the farmers' personal needs; and those
who, because they command particular skills or have access to par-
ticular materials, produce goods for exchange usually do so on a
part-time basis, their major efforts still being devoted to agriculture.
This is the prevailing pattern in both nonhydraulic and hydraulic
tribes, and it is a pattern that is not fundamentally altered by the
presence of a few professional craftsmen, such as smiths.0
b. Among the Pueblo Indians exchange between the various villages or with non-
Pueblo peoples is maintained by individuals (Parsons, 1939, I: 35; Beaglehole, 1937:
81) or by trading parties (Parsons, 1939, I: 34 ff.). Market-like gatherings are organized,
usually by women (Beaglehole, 1937: 8a ff.; Parsons, 1939, I: 36 ff.) and, it seems,
spontaneously (Beaglehole, 1937: 81 ff.). For earlier conditions see Espejo, 1916: 183;
Bandelier, FR, I: 101, 163; Parsons, 1939, I: 33 ff.; Hackett, 1923, II: 234, 236, 240,
242 ff.; for recent developments, see Parsons, 1939, I: 34 ff. For the Chagga see
Widenmann, 1899: 69; Gutmann, 1926: 425, 431.
c. Beech, 1911: 18. The potters mentioned by Beech (p. 17) obviously give only
part of their time to their craft.
234 PATTERNS OF PROPRIETARY COMPLEXITY
Large-scale constructions are a different matter. Small farming
communities of the nonhydraulic type usually lack the organizational
integration for the execution of such enterprises; and some hydraulic
tribes, such as the Suk and the Endo, have not applied the organiza-
tional methods they employ in hydraulic work to nonhydraulic ob-
jectives, as the American Pueblo Indians have done with amazing
success. To be sure, the tools of the Pueblo builders were privately
owned; but their building materials were secured under communal
leadership, and the work was done by communal labor. Such arrange-
ments do not promote a property-based private industry nor the
growth of a group that derives its strength from private industrial
property and enterprise. On the contrary. They clear the way for
patterns of operation that retard the rise of nongovernmental pro-
prietary forces in industry as well as in other sectors of society.
In the sphere of hydraulic works these antiproprietary forces ap-
pear regularly. A primitive peasant, using his own tools, cultivates
land that may or may not be communally regulated, and the seeds
for his crops may belong to him personally or to his kin group. Under
nonhydraulic conditions this is the whole story. In a hydraulic setting
cultivation proper follows a similar pattern; but the "preparatory"
operations do not. The tools are privately owned, but the raw ma-
terials for making the hydraulic installations (earth, stone, and per
haps timber) either are communal property — that is, owned by nobody
or everybody — or, if they are to be found on land held by a particular
individual, family, or clan, are taken over by the community. And
the end products of the community's coordinated effort, the ditches
or canals, do not become the property of the individual farmers or
farming families that participate in the work, but, like the water
which they carry to the individual fields, they are controlled ("owned")
by the community's governing agency.'* This proprietary peculiarity
can be discerned in the incipient hydraulic communities of the Hill
Suk, whose "irrigation ditches are the property of the tribe, not of
the individual." u In the irrigation villages of the En-Jemusi the
irrigation ditches are also the property of the tribe; 12 and this is
equally the case with the larger, communally built, irrigation instal-
lations of the Pueblo Indians.
To evaluate these facts properly we must remember that the com-
munities discussed so far are small farming societies — that is, com-
munities in which the basic unit of tribal activity is almost always
the village. In a nonhydraulic setting the headmen of the small units
do not, as a rule, have authority over any substantial communally
d. Small ditches that require the labor of only a few individuals or a kin group are
the property of those who make them.
CHAPTER 7, E 235
owned and communally managed property. Such property, however,
characterizes the hydraulic village; and in most cases it is administered
by ceremonial and/or operational leaders/
This proprietary development has another aspect, which has al-
ready been noted but which in the present context assumes a new
significance. In small nonhydraulic farming societies a headman, who
exerts little functional leadership, does not have his fields tilled for
him by the community. Among small hydraulic tribes the headman,
even when his leadership is overtly recognized, is not always so
privileged either/ However, among the Pueblo Indians, who in most
cases combined a compact hydraulic agriculture with large nonhy-
draulic constructions, the chiefs fields were cultivated for him, even
in villages that numbered only a few hundred inhabitants.
Among larger hydraulic tribes, such as the Chagga, the existence
of the chief's fields cannot be considered specific, since such land
arrangements occur in large nonhydraulic communities. But in large
hydraulic tribes the chief's fields tend to be extensive; and work on
them (and on the chief's houses) is done not by a limited number of
retainers but by all able-bodied tribesmen." Another proprietary
peculiarity is entirely specific: the chief's privileged claim on the
tribe's irrigation water.13
The extraordinary concentration of land, water, agricultural and
e. For the Pueblos the directing authority of the cacique and the war chief is well
established. The situation among the Hill Suk is less clear. Beech (1911: 15) recog-
nized that communal discipline was invoked in hydraulic work, but he was unable to
discover any directing secular leader, or for that matter any religious leaders:
"medicine men" (ibid.: xiv, n. 1). However, an "Elder" plays a prominent role in
two crucial agricultural ceremonies, one pertaining to the clearing of the land, the
other to the opening of the irrigation ditches (ibid.: 15 ff.). Sir Charles Eliot doubts the
validity of Beech's anarchistic picture (ibid.: xiv, n. 1); and he does so by citing military
requirements. No doubt the need for military leadership exists in almost all inde-
pendent communities, but Eliot's military argument would be equally valid for the
small nonhydraulic farming communities, whose chiefs rarely have more than a
"purely representative position" (Lips, 1938: 515). In the Pueblos tribal leadership
is definitely linked to leadership in communal activities, and among them hydraulic
work ranks first. Expanding Eliot's reservations, we suggest that the germs of an
operational authority were present among the Hill Suk, particularly in the matter of
the tribe's most important property, its hydraulic installations.
/. The chief occupies a conspicuously strong position among the En-Jemusi (Beech,
1911: 37), but there is no evidence of any public fields being tilled for him.
g. The Chagga chieftain demands corvee labor from the tribe's adult males, from
the women, and from the adolescent boys. These three groups work for the chief,
in agriculture: cutting the bush (men), burning (men), hoeing (women), watering
the seeds (men), raking and weeding (women), irrigating (men), and harvesting
(women) (Gutmann, 1926: 376); in construction work: cutting and transporting timber
(men), building proper (men), carrying of heavy loads of straw for the roofs (women),
bringing up material for fences, etc. (the "boys") (ibid.: 376, 368).
2g6 PATTERNS OF PROPRIETARY COMPLEXITY
industrial labor in the hands of the chiefs does not enhance personal,
family, or clan ownership.* It does not benefit the social position of
private craftsmen, who in the larger hydraulic tribes become some-
what more numerous.4 Nor does it favor private professional mer-
chants.' Specifically, it hampers the expansion of private property in
what is frequently an important secondary branch of the subsistence
economy: herding.
The tribal history of many European civilizations shows how, in
an agrarian economy, growing cattle wealth is a factor in establishing
societal leadership. In East Africa animal wealth is similarly esteemed;
and in a predominantly pastoral community, such as the Masai, this
wealth, which is eagerly displayed,14 is an essential means of deter-
mining the owners' social position.* Not so among the Chagga. Cattle,
which under the peculiar conditions of the Chagga area were largely
stall-fed,16 increased substantially; and some tribesmen owned as
many as eighty head.16 But in Chagga society the owners of large
herds did not necessarily enjoy a higher social status, although they
certainly enjoyed added material advantages. The Chagga chieftain,
thanks to his quasidespotic powers, easily found a pretext for ac-
h. Until recent colonial times the bulk of all Chagga land was controlled, first by
the clans and subsequently, and increasingly, by the chieftain. The clans yielded to
the chief some of their authority over the banana lands, which were probably the first
to be cultivated and required some irrigation (Gutmann, 1926: 303; Dundas, 1924:
300 ff.). The fields of eleusine millet, which had always required intensive irrigation
"are marked out and allotted by the Chief himself. So are the maize fields in the
plains, and this allotment is one of the important duties of the Chief" (ibid.: 301). For
recent colonial developments in the chieftain-controlled maize sector see Gutmann,
1926: 307.
i*. Among the Chagga the only professional craftsmen are the smith and perhaps
the tanner (Widenmann, 1899: 84; Gutmann, 1909: ng; Dundas, 1924: 270 ff.). The
smiths live in special localities and they may only marry women from families of smiths
(Widenmann, 1899: 84; Gutmann, 1909: ng; Dundas, 1924: 271).
;'. Among the Chagga, even more exclusively than in the Pueblos, trade is in the
hands of women (Widenmann, 1899: 69; Gutmann, 1926: 425).
k. Merker, 1904: 28. Among the Pastoral Suk, who "rather look down upon them
[the Agricultural (Hill) Suk] on account of their poverty" (Beech, 1911: 15), cattle
wealth seems to be decisive for the establishment of communal prominence. A certain
Karole, who had the reputation of being the "richest" of the Suk (ibid.: 7, n. 1), rose
as high politically as the undifferentiated conditions of his tribe permitted; he became
his group's "most important advisor" (ibid.). But the overt authority of the "advisors"
was extremely slight; and it is doubtful whether, among the Pastoral Suk, any of
them exerted more power covertly, since no communal enterprise known to us pro-
vided an opportunity for invoking generally accepted disciplinary methods. It is
probably no accident that the poorer but incipiently hydraulic Hill Suk prosecuted
persons who violated the tribal laws more severely than did the wealthier plainsmen:
"The punishments for crime in the hills are far stricter than in the plains" (ibid.: 27,
n. ,).
CHAPTER 7, E 237
cusing conspicuous cattle owners of some malfeasance or other and
for confiscating some or all of their animals." And the Chagga herders,
instead of boasting of their growing cattle wealth, became increas-
ingly secretive and fearful. An earlier practice of farming out cattle
to poorer tribesmen for foddering 18 became a convenient device for
hiding their valuable but insecure property. The animals were now
handed over to their temporary keepers furtively and by night; 19 and
the owners' sons, who originally had played an important role in
the transfer,20 were at times not even informed as to where the cattle
were placed. Says Dundas: "So secret does he keep the whereabouts
of his stock, that he will not even tell his sons where it is." 21 This
trend gained strength with the growth of chiefly power, which oc-
curred prior to the establishment of colonial rule. It was further
aggravated when, under this rule, the chief started to raise a general
cattje tax.22
In this setting private wealth does not necessarily, or even primarily,
establish public prominence."* Among the qualities that in the earlier
time favored chieftainship, wealth probably was a desirable but not a
necessary factor; and the chief's property certainly grew not in pro-
portion to what wealth he or his forefathers may have had originally
but in proportion to his growing agromanagerial and military power.
For his aides the ruler chose men who were prominent in their
locality 23 or — and increasingly — men whose personal qualifications
fitted them for the job.24 In both cases selection involved a conspicu-
ous improvement in the material conditions of the chosen, for the
chief provided his serving men with cattle and women.25 In fact,
Merker found that only persons in government positions were rich.26
3. Simple I . . .
Manifestly, hydraulic tribes like nonhydraulic agrarian tribes
develop private property. Both conformations present undifferenti-
ated forms of property (as in handicraft and trade) and a trend to-
rn. Gutmann (1909: 7) says that rich tribesmen may withhold irrigation water from
the poor, but in a later and more detailed study he describes the equalitarian way
in which all members of a given hydraulic unit are provided with water (1926: 418).
He also refers to certain "nobles" who obviously owned cattle and who helped a
chieftain obtain office (ibid.: 462). But no details are given regarding this incident,
which occurred at the beginning of the 19th century (ibid.: 461), that is, before the
chief's leadership in communal affairs had been fully established. And the clan
leaders did not owe their rank to wealth, though, once chosen, some of them probably
had opportunities for improving their economic condition (ibid.: 15). A clansman
became ceremonial leader because he was the oldest male in the group (ibid.: 13), and
the political leader, the "speaker," achieved his position on the basis "not of his age,
nor of his wealth, but of his political shrewdness" (ibid.: 14).
338 PATTERNS OF PROPRIETARY COMPLEXITY
ward regulated forms (as in farming with respect to land). At the same
time, however, significant differences may be observed. Under hy-
draulic circumstances, political property already emerges in small
hydraulically compact communities (the chiefs land in the Pueblo
villages). In larger tribes political property expands one-sidedly, and
it retards and cripples private property in important spheres of ac-
tivity (such as herding).
The difference between this one-sided accumulation of property
in the hands of the governing authorities and the pluralistic patterns
of proprietary growth in nonhydraulic agrarian tribes reflects per-
fectly the differences in the character and weight of political author-
ity." In the German tribes observed by Caesar and Tacitus the
chieftain, although recognized as the top-ranking political leader and
expected to devote much of his time to his governmental duties, was
unable to restrict or tax the wealth of his nobles. Nor did he demand
corvee labor or taxes from his tribesmen, who would have considered
such a request an insult and who, like the nobles, participated in the
public discussions of the tribe's affairs.27
Thus in tribal hydraulic societies property is simple, but it is
simple with a specific tendency toward the predominance of political,
power-based, property. This tendency increases with the size of the
community. It becomes decisive in simple hydraulic commonwealths
that are no longer directed by a primitive (tribal) government, but
by a state.
F. PATTERNS OF PROPERTY IN STATE-CENTERED
SIMPLE HYDRAULIC SOCIETIES
1. Statehood versus Primitive Government
Control over a distinct territory has been considered a basic aspect
of statehood. This aspect is indeed essential; but it has little value
in the present context, since it is not specific. (As a rule, primitive
governments also claim control over their territory.) Nor does the
criterion of sovereignty help much. (Primitive governments also
strive to establish sovereignty; and like states, they are not always
able to.)
The differences between a primitive government and a state seem
inconsequential so long as we confine comparison to external rela-
tions. They become significant when we compare internal conditions.
n. As elaborated above, in most nonhydraulic communities tribal coordination is
required mainly for military and ceremonial purposes, whereas the heads of hydraulic
tribes, in addition to exerting military and/or religious leadership, fulfill specific, vital
agromanagerial functions.
CHAPTER 7, F 239
Primitive governments are operated in the main by nonprofessionals
— that is, by functionaries who devote the bulk of their time not to
the civil, military, or religious affairs of the community but to their
own hunting, fishing, farming, or raiding. States are operated in the
main by professionals — that is, by functionaries who devote the bulk
of their time to "public" affairs. From the standpoint of human rela-
tions a state means government by professionals.
Certain communal functions, such as the maintenance of internal
order and the organization of defense, are vital for the perpetuation
of all types of society. Consequently, man's political activities are
as essential as those involved in the securing of food and shelter; and
the professionalizing of government is as important an aspect of
social differentiation as is the professionalizing of those economic or
intellectual pursuits that under more primitive conditions are handled
only by persons who are primarily engaged otherwise.
It goes without saying that a statelike government with its full-
time civil and military officials, its soldiery and police can invest
much more time and energy in administrative and coercive activities
than a primitive government. It is this power potential of the state
that makes its control by responsible and effective nongovernmental
forces the only guarantee against the rise of a totally powerful (and
totally corrupt) apparatus state.
Many Marxists, following Marx' and Engels' interpretation of the
Western state and disregarding their stress on the peculiarity of
Oriental despotism, have described "the state" as an institution that
always serves the special interests of a property-based ruling class. This
interpretation, which today, in its Soviet version, is part of an ex-
tremely widespread — and extremely potent — political myth, is not
true even for modern parliamentary governments, whose plutocratic
potential it generalizes and whose capacity for growth and democ-
ratization it denies. Nor does it fit the states of Western absolutism
and feudalism, nor indeed the democratic states of ancient Greece.
And it is completely absurd when it is applied to the agrarian and
industrial apparatus states that are characterized not by the strong
influence of nongovernmental proprietary forces on the state, but
by the abysmal lack of any such influence.
2. Steps in the Professionalizing of Government
a. Chagga Chieftainship and the State of Ancient Hawaii
The difference between primitive government and statehood be-
comes unmistakably clear when we juxtapose the single full-time and
24O PATTERNS OF PROPRIETARY COMPLEXITY
community-supported leader of a Pueblo village and the large staffs
of government functionaries in Pharaonic Egypt, imperial China, or
Ottoman Turkey. The almost complete predominance of nonpro-
fessionals in the first case is as manifest as the almost complete pre-
dominance of professional apparatus men in the second. The
difference is less obvious, but perhaps even more informative, when
we compare the regimes of large hydraulic tribes, such as the Chagga,
with the state of a relatively crude neolithic hydraulic civilization,
such as ancient Hawaii.
The absolutist acts of a Chagga chief are impressive: he kills, °
spies, seizes his subjects' cattle,6 and keeps as many girls as he wishes
in his palace." In addition and more importantly, he is the com-
mander in chief of the tribe's laboring and fighting force.* Neverthe-
less, his ability to rule the lives of his subjects is limited by the small
number of his full-time functionaries. Highest among them is "a
person who may best be described as his prime minister, and on
whom much of the executive work devolves." * Below this tribal
version of a vizier are certain helpers and advisors, akida,2 who "re-
ceive the chief's orders, convey them to the people, using for this
purpose special helpers, and supervise and organize their execution.
Such orders pertain, for instance, to the making and repairing of
canals, work for the chieftain . . . payment of taxes and religious
affairs." 3 The akida, who are expected to spend a considerable part
of their time at the chief's palace,* apparently have one assistant each; B
but the professional officialdom ends here. Clan heads may advise
the chief,8 staying at his palace for this very purpose, and most of
the on-the-spot directing remains in the hands of the clans. The
hornblower, the actual leader of the corve>, is selected by members of
his clan and only confirmed by the chieftain.7 Obviously, he is
not a full-time salaried functionary.8
a. To demonstrate his loyalty a Chagga dignitary was ready to burn his sister to
death when ordered to do so by his chieftain (Gutmann, 1914: 219).
b. As punishment for an alleged crime, Chieftain Mapfuluke is said to have seized
the cattle of one of his fathers-in-law. Later, and quite unexpectedly, he returned some
part of them (Gutmann, 1914: 231).
c. Gutmann (1926: 388 ft.) estimates that, in one instance, the chieftain assembled
from among rank-and-file families more than 5 per cent of all girls. These young
females were then assigned to his wives; but the chieftain maintained his sexual rights
over all of them: "None of the girls entered marriage untouched, the chieftain used
them as he pleased."
d. The Chagga chieftain makes the supreme decisions concerning the hydraulic
corvee and other large-scale secular enterprises. He commands his tribesmen in war;
he assigns residences to all; and he fixes the dates for sowing and harvesting (Gutmann,
1909: 25).
CHAPTER 7, F 241
Nor does the chieftain have at his disposal professional guards or
policemen. The warriors who protect his person — and this is par-
ticularly demanded at night — are ordinary members of the tribe who
return home after their shifts are done.9
The supreme head of the Chagga government is occasionally re-
ferred to as a "monarch" or "king." e However, the majority of all
observers designate him as "chieftain." 10 Conversely, the ancient
Hawaiian rulers are sometimes called "chiefs," but in more scholarly
treatises they are designated as "kings." The preferred titles reflect
the general conviction that the Chagga ruler presides over a more
primitive type of government than does his Hawaiian counterpart.
This conviction seems well founded. In the first case we are faced
with a primitive government that has elements of incipient state-
hood, in the second with a crude but genuine state.
The Hawaiian kings disposed over a much more differentiated
staff of top-ranking aides than did the Chagga chieftains. In addition
to a chief councilor, the Hawaiian ruler had a chief war leader, a
chief steward, a treasurer, and "land experts." X1 There is no evidence
that clan heads acted as his advisors or that his guards served part
time. Besides a "body guard," the king had at his beck and call a
detachment of armed men headed by an executioner — official ter-
rorizes who were always ready in the king's name to accuse, arrest,
and kill.12
In the Hawaiian government the professionals were not confined
to the top echelon. Below the leading officials there were primarily
and most importantly the konohiki. In contrast to the Chagga akida,
who spent much of their time near their chieftain, the konohiki
seem to have resided and officiated for the most part in the regions
of their jurisdiction, directing the regime's constructional, organiza-
tional, and acquisitive operations. They kept count of the popula-
tion; 13 they mobilized the corvee; " they directed the hydraulic enter-
prises; 15 they supervised agriculture; 16 they gathered the tax,17
retaining some of it for their own use and for the use of their under-
lings, but passing on most of it to the higher authorities, and eventu-
ally to the king.18
Manifestly, the konohiki and their aides were government-sup-
ported full-time functionaries. The organizational and acquisitive
network that they spread over the countryside probably contributed
more than any other political institution to making the government
of ancient Hawaii a crude, agrobureaucratic hydraulic state.
e. Gutmann, 1909: 10 ff. Lowie (1938: 30s) calls him the head of a "monarchical
system."
242 PATTERNS OF PROPRIETARY COMPLEXITY
b. Proprietary Consequences
Controlling a much more fertile territory and a much larger
population — the largest Hawaiian kingdom had five times the popu-
lation of the largest Chagga tribe ' — the Hawaiian rulers were in
a better position to establish and maintain a permanent officialdom.
And this larger officialdom in turn enabled them to control their
subjects' property more completely. In Hawaii the government's
jurisdiction over the land was not restricted by any clan rights, as
was the case among the Chagga.19 Nor did a clan head stand between
tax-collecting officials and individual taxpayers, as in Chaggaland.20
Indeed the Hawaiian regime functioned so well that the masters of
the apparatus state were able to syphon off over half of the entire
rural produce. According to one estimate, "the common laborers did
not receive on an average more than one third of the avails of their
industry." g
On a smaller scale the difference between the two types of govern-
ment appear also in the sphere of circulation. The Chagga markets
were policed by the chief's wives and regional officials; 21 but a mar-
ket tax on agricultural products and salt was collected by a member
of one particular clan." In Hawaii we find no trace of such divided
authority. The functionaries who sanctioned the transactions and
taxed the goods were toll collectors — that is, government officials.22
Thus the kings of Hawaii exerted a much more formidable power
/. In the 18th century some 300,000 Hawaiians were organized in a few sovereignties,
the largest of which, Hawaii proper, numbered more than 85,000 people (Lind, 1938:
60). Lind's figure harmonizes well with an estimate made by Ellis in 1826 (Ellis,
1826: 8). Ellis considered the total of 400,000 inhabitants suggested by the earliest
observers "somewhat above the actual population of that time, though traces of
deserted villages, and numerous enclosures formerly cultivated, but now lying waste,
are everywhere to be met with." In 1826 there were between 130,000 to 150,000 people
on the archipelago (Ellis, 1826: 8). Fornander, although suggesting smaller figures than
Cook and King, sees "no valid reasons for assuming a greater or more rapid depopula-
tion between 1778 and 1832, when the first regular census taken gave an approximately
correct enumeration of 130,000 than between the latter year and 1878, when the
census gave only 44,088, exclusive of foreigners" (Fornander, PR, II: 165). At the
beginning of the 19th century Bali had a population of about 760,000 persons, with
some of the island's major kingdoms accounting for more than 100,000 persons each
(Lauts, 1848: 104-5). Tlie largest Chagga tribes numbered less than 20,000, 10,000, or
5,000 persons respectively (Gutmann, 1926: 1).
g. Alexander, 1899: 28 n. Blackman (1899: 26) presents this estimate as "the
opinion of careful observers."
h, Gutmann, 1926: 426 ff. The clan functionary grasps a handful of taxable goods.
The trading women have the right to kick him once; but they cannot prevent him
from seizing the fee, which "at a well attended market amounts to fairly sizable
loads" (ibid.: 427).
CHAPTER 7, F 843
over their subjects' life and property than did the Chagga chieftains.
Difference in the form of reverence strikingly expresses the difference
in autocratic power. As already mentioned, the Chagga tribesmen
hold their ruler in great esteem, but unlike the Hawaiians they do
not perform before him the classical gesture of total submission:
prostration.
3. Simple Patterns of Property in Land, Industry,
and Commerce
In the early phases of state-centered hydraulic societies, private prop-
erty in land is not necessarily lacking; its origins go back much
further than was assumed by the pioneer institutionalists of the 19th
century. But the greater part of all cultivable land is regulated, and
thus kept from being privately owned, even after private and inde-
pendent property emerged notably in industry and commerce. For
this reason, we shall discuss the problems of hydraulic land tenure
later. With respect to the simple patterns of hydraulic property we
need only state here that, within the framework of these patterns,
the forms of land tenure are many but that regulated land always
prevails (and generally by a substantial margin) over privately owned
("free") land.
Property-based and independent handicraft and commerce, how-
ever, must be examined immediately, for their occurrence makes,
as we see it, a change in the patterns of property and society. This
development is not uniform.
It advances unevenly in the spheres of
A. Industry, in
1. The extractive industries (mining, quarrying, certain
forms of salt production)
2. The processing industries
a. Constructions
b. Others
and also in
B. Commerce, in
1. Foreign trade
2. Domestic trade, dealing with
a. Easily supervised goods (such as salt, iron, tea, wine,
oil, etc.)
b. Others.
In all hydraulic societies proper and in most marginal hydraulic
societies, the government engaged in comprehensive constructions.
Employing a large labor force, the agrarian apparatus state enjoys
what amounts to a monopoly of all large-scale construction work.
244 PATTERNS OF PROPRIETARY COMPLEXITY
Often it also manages those extractive operations which provide the
bulk of all raw materials for the large government constructions.
Other extractive industries, such as mining and certain forms of
salt production, may either be directly managed by the government
or, and particularly under the conditions of a money economy, they
may be controlled through monopolistic licensing.
Thus property-based and independent action cannot hope to pre-
vail in the most important sector of hydraulic industry: large-scale
constructions. Nor can it hope to operate freely in the large extractive
enterprises. Only in the nonconstructional sector of the processing
industries is there a chance for property-based free handicraft to
become significant. Indeed, apart from the making of coins, only
a few manufacturing pursuits, such as the production of weapons
and certain luxury goods, may be directly managed by the govern-
ment, while most other crafts are handled entirely by private and
independent entrepreneurs.
Free private enterprise, however, does not necessarily mean large
enterprise. Large-scale industries are extremely vulnerable on the
fiscal level, and except for government-protected units do not prosper
under the shadow of total power. The many private and independent
crafts which have emerged in certain hydraulic societies are essentially
confined to small shops and small-scale operations.
The development of private big trade may be retarded under
conditions of great hydraulic and bureaucratic density (compact-
ness), but it is not blocked by the state's managerial predomi-
nance, which, with regard to the construction industries, appears in
all hydraulic societies proper and also in many marginal hydraulic
societies. Above the level of the producer-trader, commercial business
is transacted over significant distances, either overland or oversea.
This favors large-scale action, particularly since the merchandise so
handled is less conspicuous and therefore less vulnerable fiscally than
a fixed and conspicuous industrial plant.
When the law of diminishing administrative returns induces a
state to limit its own commercial operations, independent merchants
tend to appear both in foreign and domestic trade; and governmental
attempts to maintain direct and indirect controls in both sectors at
a particular level or to restore them to an earlier level are based for
the most part on short-range considerations.*
i. This is why government policy in this regard in China, India, and the Near East
oscillated so considerably. The student of Chinese history will recall the discussions
which Han administrators conducted concerning the way in which the sale of salt
and iron should be handled. The problem arose in pre-Han days, and different
solutions were found at different times. The administrative history of India is not
CHAPTER 7, F 245
Hydraulic society outgrows the simple patterns of property, when
private and independent handicraft becomes prominent in the pro-
cessing industries (excluding, of course, large-scale construction) and
when big and independent merchants handle as much or more busi-
ness than all government-managed and government-controlled com-
merce taken together.
The almost complete absence of pertinent statistical data compels
us to formulate our criteria broadly. In some branches the relative
proportions are evident. In others we can at least establish prevailing
trends.
4. Variants of Simple Patterns of Hydraulic
Property and Society
a. Hawaii
The Hawaiian archipelago is so distant from the more southerly
regions of the Polynesian world that after an early period of daring
expeditions, "all intercourse with the southern groups seems to have
ceased, for there is no further evidence of it in any of the ancient
legends, songs, or genealogies for five hundred years." 23
Nor were the relations between the various Hawaiian kingdoms
sufficient to stimulate the development of commerce above the pro-
ducer-trader level.21 Internal circulation consisted in the main in
the transfer of rural surpluses from the peasant and fishermen pro-
ducers to the local and central representatives of the government.
Exchange between individuals occurred either in the form of
"gifts" 25 or barter; 26 and in both instances without the aid of pro-
fessional middlemen. Markets and fairs provided ample opportunity
for such activity. Ellis' descriptions of what was then considered
the most famous fair makes no reference at all to any professional
merchants. The only professional person noted by the observer
was the government official who supervised and taxed the transac-
tions between the barterers.27 When, in the early 19th century, con-
tact with the outside world opened up a new outlet for sandalwood,
it was the king and his lieutenants and not independent private
so well documented as that of China, but what we know about Indian fiscal policy
suggests similar oscillations.
The history of state and private commerce in the great hydraulic countries of the
Near East is still in its infancy; and attempts, such as that made recently by Leemans,
reveal the institutional importance of this phenomenon as well as the difficulties of
investigating it. The Near Eastern data show again that in contrast to the great
hydraulic works and the big nonhydraulic constructions, large-scale commerce can
readily be handled by private and independent merchants.
246 PATTERNS OF PROPRIETARY COMPLEXITY
28
Hawaiian merchants who handled the resulting international trade.
The undeveloped conditions of circulation reflect the undeveloped
industrial conditions, and these in turn are closely connected with
the paucity of suitable raw materials. The volcanic islands of Hawaii
lack metals; and this deficiency kept the islanders, as long as they
were separated from technically more advanced civilizations, at a
relatively crude level of neolithic life. The archipelago had useful
plants (such as taro and the coconut tree) but none of the world's
major cereals; and there were no animals that could be used to ease
man's labors. Lava was the only important workable stone.
The technical skill which the Hawaiians developed in this natural
and cultural setting was admirable.29 However, even maximum in-
genuity produced only a modest differentiation in the crafts. Special-
ists built canoes 30 and houses,31 made nets, fish lines, tapa cloth,32
and many other articles,33 yet the economic and political position
of these artisans is none too clear. A number of them may well have
worked for their own account.' But neither Hawaiian tradition nor
early non-Hawaiian observers suggest that these private artisans
could compare in importance with the craftsmen who served the
king and his functionaries. The government, which controlled an
enormous percentage of the country's surplus, was able to support
many artisans, poe lawelawe. The supreme poe lawelatoe was a mem-
ber of the central government.34 He seems to have directed the in-
dustrial activities undertaken for the benefit of the government and
obviously through the use of corvee labor. In addition, he was in
charge of the numerous artisans who were permanently attached to
the court. Says Kepelino: "At the chief's [king's] place there were
many workers or Poe- lawelawe of every description." 35
Thus in ancient Hawaii professional artisans appeared most signifi-
cantly as persons who, supported by the government, worked under
government functionaries for the ruler and his serving men. This
constellation, together with the complete absence of independent
professional merchants, created in ancient Hawaii a very rudimen-
tary variant of simple patterns of hydraulic property and society.
b. Inca Peru
The masters of the Inca empire drew upon natural resources that
were richer than those of Hawaii but poorer than those of Egypt,
Mesopotamia, China, or India. The agriculturists of the Andean area
entered the metal age at a relatively late date; and even then they
did not process iron. Nor did they domesticate animals for use in
farming. To be sure, in hydraulic civilizations the absence of labor
;'. Several trades had special patron gods (Alexander, 1899: 37, 62 ff.; Blackman,
1899: 38).
CULTURALLY ADVANCED
LABOR
NAVIGABLE
NEIGHBORS INVITING
ANIMALS
RIVERS AND BOATS
INTERNATIONAL TRADE
(-)
—
—
+
+
(-)
(+)'
+
+
+
+
+
CHAPTER 7, F 247
animals is of less importance to crop-raising k than to transporta-
tion, which is basic to the spread of military and political control,
to the collection of taxes, and to the growth of trade. However,
compared with the donkey, the mule, the ox, the horse, and the
camel — the chief labor animals of the Old World — the llama, al-
though useful for its wool, was a poor instrument of locomotion.
The absence of navigable rivers, in addition to a rugged coastline,
discouraged experiments in shipping, except on primitive rafts; and
a scarcity of culturally advanced neighbors discouraged international
trade much more decisively than was the case in Pharaonic Egypt.
Table 5. Factors Stimulating Commerce and Regional Division of
Labor in Industry
HYDRAULIC CIVILIZATIONS
Inca Peru
Pharaonic Egypt (particularly the
Old and Middle Kingdoms)
The various states of ancient China
Sumer
Key 1. The ox was used for plowing only
-f Present at the close of the Chou period.
— Absent
( ) Development limited
Our analysis has revealed a number of factors that stimulate com-
merce and regional division of labor in industry. We indicate in
Table 5 the uneven development of these factors for a number of
major simple hydraulic civilizations. Although by no means the only
formative features, they aid us in recognizing the uneven develop-
ment of trade and industry in these civilizations.
In the Andean area transportation was further discouraged by
the desert-like conditions in large segments of the coast and by the
high and steep elevations in the strategically located mountain re-
gions. For all these reasons, effective and long-distance communica-
tion proceeded essentially on land and not on water; and it depended
k. An approach which recognizes the crucial role of hydraulic operations in the
development of agriculture cannot be content with Lowie's otherwise suggestive
typology of subsistence economies: "hunting, farming with hoe or dibble, farming
with plow and livestock, and stockbreeding without farming (pastoral nomadism)"
(Lowie, 1938: 283). The Near East, India, and China shared the plow and labor
animals with Europe and Japan; and the reason for the differences between the
stationary hydraulic civilizations and other agrarian civilizations that were not
stationary must therefore be looked for elsewhere, and most decisively, it would seem,
in the presence or absence of hydraulic agriculture.
248 PATTERNS OF PROPRIETARY COMPLEXITY
to an extraordinary degree on roads that were built and controlled
by the omnipotent hydraulic state. There were a few foreign-mer-
chants; 36 and some of the trade in salt and fish reported for the
northern border zone 37 may have been handled by professionals.
But such developments were so peripheral and of so little importance
that serious scholars, such as Means, have completely overlooked
their occurrence. Within the empire government officials directed
the transfer of enormous quantities of goods — corn, beans, cotton,
timber, metal, textiles, etc. — along the coast, on the altiplano, and
from one zone to the other; and small producer-traders exchanged
products by barter at the many fairs that were held regularly through-
out the country.38 But there is no evidence that any private agency
competed with the government in long-distance transportation and
distribution of goods. Trade there was, and on a local level obviously
plenty of it. But there were almost no independent professional
traders.
The industrial sphere of Inca life was much more differentiated,
but the private artisans remained inconspicuous in comparison
with government-employed craftsmen. The mines were managed
either by the local heads of formerly independent territories or by
nonlocal members of the imperial officialdom."1 In both cases they
were controlled by professional officeholders who, in one way or
another, were part of the over-all agromanagerial apparatus.
More precise information exists concerning certain aspects of the
processing industries. The large construction teams were directed
by prominent Inca functionaries; and the work patterns of Hawaii,
Pharaonic Egypt, and early China suggest that here, too, special
officials may have been in charge of the permanent government
workers and those craftsmen who, for two months or "at most" three
months," rendered industrial labor service in the state workshops.
Among the permanent craftsmen that the government occupied
there were apparently many silversmiths39 and also not a few car-
penters.40 Weavers, shoemakers, lumbermen, and makers of copper
tools are mentioned as working at home after having fulfilled their
corvee obligations.41 Garcilaso's description does not make it clear
whether all, or most, of these last worked exclusively at their speciali-
ties or whether some — or even most of them — were farmer-artisans.
If we assume that most of them were professional craftsmen, it is
even more noteworthy that the early accounts of rural and urban
m. Local mining of gold in accordance with directions from Cuzco is indicated by
Polo de Ondegardo (1872: 70 ff.). Cf. Cieza, 1945: 269; Sarmiento, 1906: 100; Rowe,
1946: 246; Garcilaso, 1945, 1: 253; Sancho de la Hos, 1938: 181.
n. Notable overtime was deducted from the following year's corvfe labor (Garcilaso,
1945, I: 255).
CHAPTER 7, F 249
life do not mention them. It was only as permanent workers for
the state or as members of the industrial corvee that the artisans
became a conspicuous feature of Inca society.
The "virgins," who were selected by officials from among the
young and attractive females of the empire, provided the regime
with a unique, but eminently useful, labor force. The "Selected
Ones" were kept under strict supervision in special houses, where
they spent the greater part of their time weaving, spinning,42 and
preparing beverages.0 The sovereign included some of them in his
harem; and he assigned others to prominent dignitaries. But there
were always large numbers of them confined to the "houses." Ap-
parently there were many such establishments in the Inca empire:
some had two hundred inmates,43 the one in Caxa had five hundred,4*
the one on Lake Titicaca one thousand,45 and the one in Cuzco
usually more than fifteen hundred.46 Economically, the Inca "houses"
constitute an interesting parallel to the textile shops of 17th- and
18th-century Europe. Few of these latter employed more persons,
and those employed were in the main women, who often worked
only part of the year.47
Despite a not inconsiderable technical development, Inca society
developed no conspicuous, independent, private-property-based
classes. The sinecure land, which the Incas assigned to certain mem-
bers of the ruling group, created no full-fledged landownership; 48
and professional private enterprises were virtually absent in the
spheres of transport and trade, which in other civilizations favored
the rise of independent rich merchants. Professional private artisans,
who certainly existed, remained an insignificant force even in the
processing industries, when compared with the numerous craftsmen
who permanently or temporarily practiced their skills in the govern-
ment workshops and "houses." An interesting if feeble trend toward
private handicraft notwithstanding, the Inca empire represents a
simple pattern of hydraulic property and society.
o. CPLNC: 309. The two Spaniards who gave Sancho de la Hos (1938: 181) a first-
hand report on the Lake Titicaca temple mentioned only the preparation of sacred
wine by the women, if the chronicler recorded their story correctly. But whatever the
accuracy of the initial report, it seems most unlikely that the thousand "selected"
women of the Lake Temple made nothing but chicha the year round, and this in the
classical region of llama-breeding and wool production. Our doubts are strengthened
by The Anonimo's comment on the dual activities of the women at Caxa (CPLNC:
309) and by Garcilaso's description of the institution in the Inca capital. Obviously
the virgins also had to prepare chicha and certain ceremonial foodstuffs, but their
main operation (il principal exercicio) was spinning and weaving (Garcilaso, 1945,
I: 188 ff.). There were many other houses of the same kind throughout the country.
Their inmates engaged in the same' economic activities. They "spun and wove and
made an enormous amount of cloth for the Inca" (ibid.: 189).
250 PATTERNS OF PROPRIETARY COMPLEXITY
c. Pharaonic Egypt
A uniquely serviceable river provided the masters of Pharaonic
Egypt with excellent facilities for internal communication; shipping
was therefore well advanced at the dawn of written history. But
scarcity of raw materials did not necessitate a regular foreign trade;
nor was such trade stimulated by culturally advanced neighbors. The
Egyptian ships and beasts of burden permitted the establishment of
some external contacts, but these contacts remained intermittent —
and essentially government managed — until the close of the Middle
Kingdom.
During the New Kingdom, and particularly in the days of the
empire, private merchants emerged. But often they Were attached
to the temples 49 and apparently they were no match for the state.
According to Kees, during a great part of the New Kingdom the
Pharaoh remained "the only big merchant." 50
To be sure, foreign merchants did business in Egypt, but native
middlemen were given even less opportunity in domestic than in
foreign trade.51 In the local markets producer-traders exchanged their
goods directly, and in the main by barter.52 A market official of the
New Kingdom significantly bore the title "Scribe of Barter." 53
Handicraft offered more room for the development of private
enterprise. No matter to what extent the census data of the Old
Kingdom imply the presence of independent trades during that
period,p the cases of Hawaii and Inca Peru show that professional
artisans operated in state-centered hydraulic societies that were tech-
nically less advanced than the Old Kingdom. And a number of
records from the Middle and the New Kingdom definitely speak of
private artisans.8*
These Egyptian private artisans were more conspicuous than their
colleagues in the Inca empire; but, like them, they probably catered
essentially to the every-day needs of small consumers.55 Did they, at
least numerically, equal the many craftsmen who in the processing
industries were permanently or temporarily employed by the govern-
ment and the temples? Even this is not certain. But there can be
little doubt that economically they were less significant.
The government engaged particularly in three kinds of industrial
work: (1) extractive and preparatory operations requiring much
labor, some of it skilled, but most of it unskilled; (2) big construction
enterprises, requiring a combination of skilled and unskilled labor;
and (3) processing industries, carried out in the main by skilled
p. Kees (1933: 164 ff.) hesitates to accept E. Meyer's interpretation of these data
as proving the existence of free artisans and merchants.
CHAPTER 7, F 251
craftsmen who were gathered together in larger or smaller workshops.
In all three sectors the skilled craftsmen, who included artists of
great ability,56 seem to have been largely government employees. The
"chiefs of work" 57 probably had supreme jurisdiction over them. In
the branch industries they operated under specially designated fore-
men.58
On the basis of carefully weighed evidence Kees concludes that "the
economic life of [Pharaonic] Egypt constituted a not very appropriate
soil for an estate of independent free artisans." 59 He finds the con-
cept of free handicraft, except for lowly producers who satisfied
lowly needs, "poorly suited for the economic picture of the Old
Kingdom." 60 After the interlude of the Middle Kingdom, during
which territorial courts became outstanding centers of the arts and
crafts,61 the New Kingdom increasingly forced the artisans into state-
regulated workshops and subjected them to the rigid control of the
state storehouses that allocated the raw materials.62
Documents from the New Kingdom show the state artisans eager
for promotion to higher posts. Their foremen considered themselves
fairly distinguished members of the bureaucratic hierarchy.63
To summarize: the power of the Pharaohs was so all embracing
that private and independent handicraft made little headway, and
independent professional commerce during the greater part of the
period even less. The prevalence of state trade and the weight of
government-managed industry, together with the dominance of state-
regulated landed property created — and maintained — in Pharaonic
Egypt a historically and institutionally significant variant of the
simple pattern of hydraulic property and society.
d. Ancient China
The most archaic Chinese inscriptions, the divination texts of the
Shang dynasty, mention sets of shells, which in all probability were
used as means of exchange. But they do not clearly refer to profes-
sional merchants. Neither do merchants play a conspicuous role in
the inscriptions and literary texts of the Chou dynasty. Although in
early China there certainly was trade, there seem to have been few,
if any, professional traders.
Big merchants, who traveled overland, are reported for the first
part of the later Chou period, the time of the "Spring and Autumn
Annals" (721-481 B.C.). But those on whom the data are fullest
cooperated so closely with their rulers that they can probably be
considered to have been government attached.64
During the last phase of the Chou dynasty, the time of the Warring
252 PATTERNS OF PROPRIETARY COMPLEXITY
States, independent merchants increased in importance — so much
so, in fact, that in the 4th century B.C. the state of Ch'in took measures
to restrict them.65 By the time Ch'in had welded "all-under-heaven"
into an empire, the great Unifier, Ch'in Shih Huang-ti, decimated the
ranks of the merchants by sentencing them to guard the frontier, at
first the merchants themselves and then their sons and grandsons.66
This policy demonstrates both the economic importance and the
political weakness of nongovernmental professional traders at the
end of the Chou period.
The early Chinese records that have so little to say about profes-
sional traders are more articulate about craftsmen. The beautiful
bronze artifacts of Shang and early Chou reveal extraordinary in-
dustrial refinement. However, and different from conditions in feudal
Europe, the Chinese crafts developed not on many and separated
manorial estates or in guild-controlled burgher towns but rather in
big administrative centers controlled by the Son of Heaven, the ter-
ritorial rulers, or their high ranking officials. Artisan-officials, the
"hundred artisans," are mentioned in the oldest literary texts as
well as in the early bronze inscriptions.67 Apparently government
artisans employed their skills under the supreme direction of the
Minister of Works, the ssii-kung,&& and alongside the "people," who
as part of their corvee duty constituted the unskilled labor force of
the government's large constructional enterprises.
Government-attached artisans may have prevailed until the time
of the "Spring and Autumn Annals"; 69 and perhaps it was only
during the subsequent period of the Warring States that private
artisans became increasingly important.
We have no conclusive evidence that, under the Chou dynasty
and under the first imperial dynasties, private merchants or artisans
organized independent professional corporations (guilds) .q The re-
tarded development in this regard is surprising when we remember
that private handicraft and particularly private trade flourished at
the close of and after the Chou period. Whatever the reasons for this
unevenness, we are probably safe in suggesting that a simple Oriental
society prevailed in ancient China until the end of Early Chou
(722 b.c.) and probably also in the first centuries of Later Chou.
q. Shops dealing with the same goods were apparently assembled in the same locality
from the close of the Chou period on or from Early Han days (Kato, 1936: 79), and
probably also prior to this time. But it "was not until after the Sui period that the
expression 'hang', used in the sense of a street of shops of the same trade, came into
general use"; and it was only "at the close of the T'ang period, or even later, that they
[the Chinese merchants] came to organise a real merchants' association" (ibid.: 83).
CHAPTER 7, F 253
e. Sumer
The agricultural civilizations of Lower Mesopotamia originated in
a setting that was as lacking in certain industrial materials as it
was encouraging to interarea exchange. The alluvial landscape, which
because of its well-watered rivers offered ideal opportunities for hy-
draulic development, lacked stone, timber, and metals. However,
these materials, which were essential to technical, military, and po-
litical growth, were available in adjacent lands, and from the stand-
point of wealth, security, and power the incentives to obtain them
were enormous.
The ancient Hawaiians did not get from abroad the raw materials
that they lacked at home; and the Andean Indians and early Egyptians
created urban civilizations mainly on the basis of their own resources.
The Sumerians developed a flourishing urban life, because they
succeeded in establishing and maintaining an elaborate system of
international relations and exchange.
Needed raw materials can be obtained by organized force: war.
But this is not always appropriate, and particularly not when the
sources of supply are remote and those in control strong. In many
cases the sough t-f or goods had to be acquired by peaceful means —
that is, primarily by trade.
Long distance trade requires the services of specialists in trans-
portation and exchange. In Lower Mesopotamia merchants appeared
early. While traders played an insignificant role in almost all other
simple Oriental civilizations, they were conspicuously mentioned in
the Sumerian protohistorical inscriptions of Fara; 70 and in later and
more detailed inscriptions they were depicted as important profes-
sionals.
The development of urban centers of administration and religion
also involved a fairly advanced division of industrial labor; and the
Sumerian inscriptions contain many references to artisans, who prac-
ticed their skills professionally. How developed were private property
and private enterprise in early Lower Mesopotamia?
Deimel's elaborate investigations suggest that from the dawn of
history on/ the Sumerian temple cities probably offered less oppor-
tunity for independent craftsmen than did ancient Hawaii, Peru,
and Pharaonic Egypt. Like the other members of the temple com-
r. According to Deimel, the ancient Sumerians apparently depended as much on
the temples, when the Fara texts were written, as they did three or four hundred
years later, when Urukagina ruled Lagash. "The population then too served the temple
and lived on it" (Deimel, 1924a: 42).
254 PATTERNS OF PROPRIETARY COMPLEXITY
munity, the artisans received land,71 and like them also, they rendered
corvee service,72 which, according to Schneider's tentative estimate,
may have lasted some four months a year.73 A number of craftsmen
were employed permanently in temple workshops,74 as were certain
slaves (in the main female).75 The majority of all artisans, however,
seems to have worked for the temples through the operation of a
putting-out system: temple storehouses provided them with raw ma-
terials, which they processed at home and for a wage.76 The position
of these artisans was not unlike that of many European craftsmen who
during the first centuries of industrial capitalism worked in a similarly
decentralized way for their commercial or industrial employers.
Were all domestic artisans of early Mesopotamia so engaged? And
did any of them engage at least in some independent business? The
second question is more easily answered than the first. The fact that
all (or some?) of the workmen offered the temples certain tax-like
"gifts" 77 is best explained by the assumption that they were able
to produce something for their own account.8
The private activities of the Sumerian merchants were apparently
much more extensive. No doubt these merchants were not inde-
pendent of the city or temples either. They, too, were assigned land,
but much more than the artisans — in fact, as much as a middle official
or officer.' They could have their fields cultivated for them by tenants,
wage laborers, or slaves; and their landed possessions, instead of
handicapping them in their commercial activities, probably provided
them with additional means for their business enterprises. As mer-
chants, they were attached either to the supreme authority of the
city state,78 or to a temple, the second most important unit of power.79
And obviously and in the main, they traded for the "palace" or the
temples.80
In their transactions the great merchants, gal damkar, and the
ordinary merchants, damkar, enjoyed considerable freedom; 81 and
5. A. Schneider assumes that the artisans who worked at home for the temples
"apart from this, and perhaps already against a remuneration, also executed orders
from other members of the temple community" (1920: 85).
/. According to inscriptions collected by Hussey, a damkar of the Bau Temple
received 19 gan of land (Schneider, 1920: 66). One gan could support more than one
person and two gan a small family (ibid.: 35 ff.). A top-ranking temple executive,
mentioned in Hussey's material, received 43 gan (ibid.: 35). Another text gives much
higher totals for the land assigned to high officials: 90 gan and even 138% gan (ibid.).
Heads of military detachments or other prominent warriors received 23, 24, 26, and
18 gan, and a temple official engar 17% gan (ibid.: noff.). Among the artisans, a
carpenter was given 1 gan, a chariot maker 1 to 2 gan, a tanner 3 gan, and cooks
and bakers from 214 to 6 gan (ibid.).
CHAPTER 7, F 255
in addition they were permitted to trade for their own account. They
might have business dealings with the ruler,82 with the queen,83 with
members of the ruling family," and with less highly situated persons.8*
Manifestly the opportunities for amassing wealth were vast,85
Thus in contrast to ancient Hawaii, China, and Pharaonic Egypt,
Sumer saw a very early development of private enterprise in trade.
And whereas the country's artisans, even when they were engaged
in domestic industry, were closely tied to the temple economy, the
merchants, who were neither trading officials nor governmental com-
mercial agents but something in between, were much less so. Few
simple hydraulic societies moved as conspicuously toward a property-
based and independent commerce as did ancient Sumer.
5. Origins of Bureaucratic Capitalism
The great merchants of Sumer, who had funds of their own and who
traded directly with their sovereign, occupied a position very dif-
ferent from that of the commercial specialists of the Pharaohs. The
representatives of the Pharaohs, who traded with Punt,88 Phoenicia,87
Mesopotamia,88 and Cyprus,89 handled government property for the
advantage of the government. They accomplished an exchange of
goods often under the guise of diplomatic "presents," but they had
a keen eye for the values involved. They asked for specific items,90
they carefully examined the objects offered them,91 they criticized
inadequate gifts,92 and they stressed the need for reciprocity.93 What-
ever presents were given them during, or at the end of, their expedi-
tions were given them as servants of the king and not as independent
businessmen. In short, they were governmental trading officials not
too different in their position from the members of a Soviet Trade
Mission.
In contrast to such trading officials, the government-attached mer-
chants used their own capital largely, or exclusively, in the service
of their rulers, who — while providing them with excellent oppor-
tunities for doing business — might also set the conditions (prices,
profits) under which these opportunities could be utilized. To in-
voke a designation that originally pleased the Chinese Communists
but that now embarrasses them, these merchants were "bureaucratic
capitalists." 94
In a wider sense, the designation "bureaucratic capitalists" is ap-
plicable to several groups: (1) tax collectors, who act as fiscal agents
u. Scholtz, 1934: 59. Princes or princesses occupied a number of artisans, servants,
and slaves (Deimel, 1929: 126, 128; ibid., 1931: no).
256 PATTERNS OF PROPRIETARY COMPLEXITY
for a ruling bureaucracy; (2) officiating or nonofficiating members
of such a bureaucracy, who on the strength of their political position
engage in private enterprises, such as trading, money lending, and
tax farming; (3) private businessmen, who as commercial agents or
contractors do business for the ruling bureaucracy; and (4) private
businessmen, who attach themselves to individual members of the
bureaucracy to assure the success of their transactions. Bureaucratic
capitalists, then, are owners of capital who act as commercial or fiscal
agents for an apparatus state, no matter whether they are members
of the officialdom or functionaries of the dominant religion, or per-
sons of wealth who are neither.
The records of ancient China are not clear on the subject of trading
officials, although it seems likely that in the Shang and Early Chou
periods certain functionaries of the early territorial states fulfilled
commercial tasks. They are more articulate on the presence of govern-
ment-attached commercial agents. Indeed such persons are sufficiently
conspicuous to justify our tentatively classing Chou China, up to
the period of the "Spring and Autumn Annals," as a simple Oriental
society.
For Inca Peru the very problem does not arise seriously. Officials
of the frontier districts may have traded government-owned goods
against goods produced abroad; and some transactions may well
have been concluded privately. But Inca society seems to have had
little need for trading officials and still less for government-attached
commercial agents.
The Sumerian inscriptions contain many references to foreign trade
(internal exchange was mainly confined to barter).95 Unfortunately,
however, the texts leave many questions unanswered. What kinds of
commercial transactions were involved in the many government ex-
peditions that were undertaken to acquire stone,96 wood,97 metal,98
bitumen,99 and other items? Were the majority of all merchants
primarily trading officials or governmental commercial agents? No
matter what the answer to these questions may be, the character of
ancient Sumerian society provides scant justification for interpreting
the "merchants" of the oldest inscriptions thus far deciphered as in-
dependent entrepreneurs.
6. The Hydraulic Sponge
Most of the hydraulic civilizations that achieved considerable pro-
prietary differentiation seem to have maintained simple patterns of
property at an earlier time. In some cases, such as India, simple
conditions of property and society gave way relatively quickly to
CHAPTER 7, F 257
semicomplex configurations. In other cases, such as Egypt and Lower
Mesopotamia, they prevailed for millennia. In the Andean area they
were (still or again?) dominant when the conquistadores arrived.
The variations in the persistence of simple patterns of property
assume a new meaning as soon as they are correlated with variations
in hydraulic density. The hydraulic centers of Peru, Egypt, and
Lower Mesopotamia all gave birth to compact systems of hydraulic
agriculture, whereas many of the territorial states of India and China
and, for that matter, of Mexico relied on loose or marginal types
of Oriental agriculture. We do not, in this context, cite Hawaii, be-
cause in that archipelago the perpetuation of extremely simple pat-
terns of Oriental property was obviously due to an extraordinary
combination of internal and external circumstances. However, in
the first instances the contrast in hydraulic density patterns is too
striking to be dismissed as irrelevant. In all probability the early
independent hydraulic communities of the Andean zone traded be-
yond their borders, and this early trade may well have been handled
not only by commercial officials but also by government-attached
private merchants, who may to some extent have acted for their own
account. But Sumerian history demonstrates that strong hydraulic
regimes can keep the bulk of all traders attached to the government
even in separated city states. Thus it is not impossible that in the
Andean area (as in Sumer and Pharaonic Egypt, but perhaps with
more marked oscillations) there prevailed, even prior to the Incas,
simple conditions of power, property, and class.
In Peru these conditions may have endured as long as state-centered
and hydraulic civilizations were present in the area. In Egypt they
outlasted the relative isolation of the hydraulically compact Nile
Valley. And in Lower Mesopotamia they persisted even after the
compact hydraulic heartland had been incorporated into larger and
looser hydraulic conformations. Leemans assumes a high development
of private property and trade 10° when the second Sumerian empire
under Ur III for a brief period reached to the Mediterranean Sea,
Assyria, and Persia. However, according to the same authority, state
trade prevailed again under the last Larsa ruler, Rim-Sin,101 under
the Babylonian king, Hammurabi,102 who defeated him, and for over
four centuries under the Kassites.103
In these compact hydraulic societies the "dense" bureaucratic ap-
paratus obviously acted like a powerful hydraulic sponge, whose
capacity to absorb vital functions of industry and trade was superior,
other conditions being equal, to that of less compact hydraulic com-
munities.
2g8 PATTERNS OF PROPRIETARY COMPLEXITY
G. SEMICOMPLEX PATTERNS OF HYDRAULIC
PROPERTY AND SOCIETY
But such compact and self-perpetuating simple hydraulic societies
are not too numerous. In many hydraulic civilizations the agromana-
gerial apparatus state, while keeping the bulk of the cultivable land
from becoming private property, did not so seriously restrict the
growth of nongovernmental, property-based, and professional handi-
craft and commerce.
i. Occurrences
a. Pre-Conquest Meso-America
The rise of independent professional artisans and merchants in
Aztec Mexico contrasts illuminatingly with conditions in Inca Peru.
A complete lack of transport animals handicapped the inhabitants
of Meso-America; but this deficiency was largely compensated for
by a number of other ecological advantages. The terrain was far more
suitable for interterritorial communication; navigable lakes, rivers,
and an extended and approachable coast stimulated the circulation
of goods by boat. The Sumerians enjoyed similar advantages; and we
should not be surprised to learn that like them the Aztecs and their
predecessors, the Toltecs, had private professional merchants and
carried on an extensive international commerce.1 These conditions
also promoted a technical and regional division of industrial labor.
But neither the city states nor the larger territorial units of pre-
Conquest Mexico were as hydraulically compact as were their
Sumerian counterparts. Thus the professional artisans and merchants
of Mexico were not equally dependent upon the hydraulic state. Their
plots of land were allotted by the calpulli, local and stratified units
that possessed a limited autonomy; 2 and apparently neither group
rendered extended labor services. Except for references to houses in
which females were assembled,0 we have little evidence for govern-
ment workshops.6 According to Zurita and other early sources, the
artisans rendered no corvee labor but paid over part of their produce
a. According to Torquemada, houses with females, "nuns," were "widespread"
(Torquemada, 1943, II: 189, 191). Diaz, who observed traditional Aztec society before
it disintegrated, asserts that there were "nunneries" in a number of Central American
countries. In Mexico proper he knew of only one, in the capital (Diaz, 1944, I: 349 ff.).
b. Diaz (1944, I: 346) mentions government-managed bakeries. Sahagun (1938, III:
75) speaks of persons who made shoes for the lords. Was the work in the government
shops performed by serving men, who, while hereditary members of the calpulli,
worked exclusively for the sovereign? (Monzon, 1949: 41.) Is this what Torquemada
(1943, II: 488) had in mind when he said that certain work was done by artisans
CHAPTER 7, G 259
as tax.3 Except for the time they spent in tilling their fields, the many
Mexican craftsmen 4 seem to have deployed their special skills for
their own account, preparing articles to be sold at the markets that
were held in the large communities.5
The small traders were probably as independent as they were insig-
nificant/' But the big interterritorial merchants, the pochteca, were
close to the governmental apparatus. Permitted to rent out their
plots of land G and to render tax instead of labor service,7 the pochteca
could engage in full-time commerce. They served the government
as diplomats 8 and spies.9 Occasionally they conducted military cam-
paigns on behalf of their sovereign.10 Tezozomoc says that the king's
own brothers and uncles were pochteca.11
Manifestly, these big merchants were part of the ruling class.12 But
they were not commercial officials. Being rich, they operated with
their own funds, and essentially, it would seem, for their own account.
They might also collect taxes for the government,13 and at such
times, they were bureaucratic capitalists in the narrow sense of the
term. However, this was no universal practice, for we know that
as a rule the taxes were levied by full-time officials.
And there is still less evidence that the Mexican pochteca and/or
their aides traded largely on order of the ruler and the temples, as
did the Sumerian damkar. Thus, however close the pochteca's as-
sociations with the "lords" may have been socially and politically,
professionally they do not seem to have been part of the state ap-
paratus. It is for this reason and because of the independence of the
artisans that we view Aztec Mexico as a semicomplex hydraulic society.
The exact position of the Maya artisans is not easily determined.
Clearly they were given fields, milpa/* and contrary to practice in
Aztec Mexico they seem to have received allotments, not from semi-
autonomous heads of the calpulli but from regional representatives
of the central government.15 The Maya commoners who built
"houses" for the "lords" may well have included artisans; but the
records are not articulate on this point. They are even less articulate
on government-managed workshops, which as in Mexico were prob-
ably not absent altogether. But as in Mexico, the Maya craftsmen
probably produced and traded mainly for their own account.16
Lacking a comprehensive agromanagerial officialdom, the Maya
rulers did not maintain an elaborate state trade. Some "rich" men
were members of the governing class,17 but it is doubtful whether the
"for the lords"? Or are we faced with residual forms of an industrial corvee, which,
although still invoked, had ceased to be institutionally relevant?
c. Apparently they dealt in foods, cloth, and cacao on a modest scale and for a
lowly clientele (Sahagun, 1938, III: 40, 53, 77).
26o PATTERNS OF PROPRIETARY COMPLEXITY
big Maya merchants in their entirety were as close socially to the
secular and priestly leaders as were the pochteca. According to Landa,
men of wealth lived near the "lords" and priests, but not in the
same quarter.18 Could it be that the crystallization of a property-
based and nongovernmental group of professional merchants had
advanced further in the hydraulically marginal lowlands of Yucatan
than in the hydraulic core of Mexico?
b. India, China, the Near East
In India semicomplex patterns of hydraulic property and society
prevailed throughout the greater part of its recorded history. In
China and the Near East simple patterns of property yielded to more
complex configurations and with differing results. China operated
on a semicomplex level at least twice, once during the last centuries
of the Chou period and again from the later part of the 5th century
to the 8th century a.d. In the Near East complex patterns of property
possibly prevailed only during a certain phase of Roman rule,
whereas semicomplex configurations were prominent both before and
after that time.
Thus varying forms of semicomplex hydraulic property and society
prevailed in India almost from the dawn of written history to the
19th century, in China altogether for some five hundred years, and
in the Near East for two long periods covering two thousand years
or more.
c. Byzantium and Russia
I n Byzantine society there was no lack of private craftsmen and mer-
chants. As a matter of fact, Byzantine trade was both comprehensive
and flourishing during the middle and later part of the first millen-
nium.19 But the Byzantine artisans and merchants no longer had the
freedom of action that their predecessors had enjoyed in the Greek
cities of Western Asia or in Rome prior to the victory of bureaucratic
absolutism. Administrative and fiscal restrictions burdened the crafts-
men and traders of Byzantium until the 1 1 th century,20 pressing them
into a peculiarly crippled variant of a semicomplex pattern of hy-
draulic property.
In post-Mongol Russia private property in land evolved unevenly
and as far as the peasants were concerned, very late. Professional and
free handicraft recovered slowly from the setbacks instituted under
the Mongol yoke. Commerce offered much greater opportunities to
those who controlled it, and the masters of the Muscovite apparatus
state were eager to manipulate it either directly, through trading
CHAPTER 7, G 26l
officials, or indirectly, through commercial agents. In the sphere of
domestic trade government functionaries first purchased wax, honey,
and other items, "taking them at smal prices what themselves list,
and selling them againe at an excessive rate to their own marchants,
and to marchants strangers. If they refuse to buy them, then to force
them unto it." 21 The government also sold goods that it received
as taxes or tributes and obviously with a similar disregard for the
buyer, for such goods were "forced upon the marchants to be bought
by them at the emperours price, whether they will nor no." d
Foreign merchants too had to submit to government regulations.
Once inside the Russian realm they had to display all their com-
modities before the officials, who "put a value on them"; 22 and they
could not trade with private individuals before the Tsar was given
an opportunity to buy what he wanted.23
But the Muscovite state was unable to manage the bulk of all
large-scale circulation as did the regimes of Pharaonic Egypt or Inca
Peru. The Tsar comprehensively employed the services of a numbei
of rich merchants, particularly the gosti. These bureaucratic capitalists,
who collected taxes and custom fees for the government,2* usually
acted as the Tsar's commercial councilors and agents.25
Outside the government trade proper, commerce was carried on,
among others, by the pomeshchiki. These holders of office land sold
the surplus grain and other surplus products of their estates for their
own account,26 thus constituting a group of bureaucratic capitalists
sui generis. The monasteries, which were linked and subordinated
to the state, also engaged in commercial transactions, not infrequently
on a large scale.27
All this did not leave much room for the operations of professional
and independent trade. The gosti and a small number of other
privileged merchants controlled a large segment of the market,28
seeing to it that "nowhere free commerce be permitted." 2B Such
at least was the opinion of the ordinary merchants, who played a
decidedly inferior role and hated the gosti bitterly.30
Privileged merchants of the Muscovite period could amass great
wealth, but neither this wealth nor their semi-official position pro-
tected them against the confiscatory actions of their despotic masters.
Fletcher reports a case in which three brothers of unusual energy
and daring built up a thriving trade that yielded them "300,000
rubbels in money, besides landes, cattels, and other commodities."
Fletcher ascribes this initial success partly to the fact that the brothers
lived more than a thousand miles from Moscow. For a while they
d. The government profited particularly from the quasimonopolistic sale of furs,
grain, and wood (Fletcher, 1856; 57 ff.).
262 PATTERNS OF PROPRIETARY COMPLEXITY
stood well with the authorities, who charged them with the adminis-
tration of certain customs along the Siberian border. The Tsar was
"content to use their purse, till such time as they got ground in
Siberia." Finally, however, the government took away their fortune
"by pieces, sometimes 20,000 rubbels at a time, sometime more; till
in the end their sonnes that now are, are well eased of their stocke,
and have but small parte of their fathers substance: the rest being
drawen all into the emperours treasurie." 31
Private property and property-based enterprise suffered immensely
from this ruthless policy. "The great oppression over the poore
commons," so Fletcher,
maketh them to have no courage in following their trades: for
that the more they have the more daunger they are in, not onely
of their goods but of their lives also. And if they have any
thing, they conceale it all they can, sometimes conveying it
into monasteries, sometimes hiding it under the ground and
in woods, as men are woont to doo where they are in feare of
forreine invasion. ... I have seene them sometimes when they
have layed open their commodities for a liking ... to look
still behind them and towards every doore: as men in some
feare, that looked to be set upon and surprised by some enimie.32
Under such conditions most of the commoners preferred immediate
satisfaction to long-range planning: "This maketh the people (though
otherwise hardened to beare any toile) to give themselves much to
idlenes and drinking: as passing for no more then from hand to
mouth." 33 It is difficult to find a more colorful and more depressing
picture of private mobile property under the conditions of a crippled
semicomplex Oriental society.
2. How Powerful Could the Representatives of
Private Mobile and Active Property Become in
Semicomplex Hydraulic Societies?
How much power may the potentially wealthiest representatives of
mobile property, the big merchants, wield in semicomplex hydraulic
societies? Can they ever dominate, or run, an absolutist government?
Wealthy merchants certainly may control absolutist governments;
and this may be the case even in commonwealths that contain ele-
ments of hydraulic statecraft. Elements. As long as such governments
fail to keep private property legally and economically weak, so long
will the patterns of property and power remain hydraulically sub-
marginal. This is always so when the interests of private property
dominate the society; and it is so even when large hydraulic enter-
CHAPTER 7, G 263
prises and/or quasi-Oriental devices of political control are present.
The city state of Venice built enormous protective water works, but
Venice remained a nonhydraulic aristocratic republic, in which big
commercial property gained a maximum of strength and security.
Carthaginian society in the 4th and 3d centuries B.C. included a
number of Oriental institutions. The Carthaginians certainly knew
irrigation agriculture.34 Their government was strong enough to tax
the Lybian peasants of their agrarian hinterland/ To the disgust of
their Roman enemies, they invoked the symbol of total submission,
prostration, not only before their gods "as is the custom with other
men," but also before their fellow men.35 But as we have seen in
Japan, irrigation techniques and prostration may occur also at the
submarginal fringe of the hydraulic world; and in Carthage commer-
cial interests were manifestly paramount f and private property was
the key means for attaining high political office.5' On the basis of our
present knowledge we may therefore say that at least at the time of
Aristotle the rich merchants probably dominated Carthaginian so-
ciety and that similar submarginal configurations in all likelihood
emerged in a number of other places, particularly — although not nec-
essarily— at the geographical fringe of the hydraulic world.
In independent commonwealths based on commerce, rich mer-
chants— who may also be big landowners — can certainly achieve so-
cial and political prominence. But while recognizing this possibility,
we must ask: how much power can the representatives of independent
commercial property wield in semicomplex Oriental societies?
a. Miscellaneous Developments
Under semicomplex conditions of property, the bulk of cultivable
land is not owned privately; the big merchants must therefore derive
their societal strength primarily from their mobile wealth. In a num-
ber of cases their combined wealth was enormous; but even under ra-
tional despots, such as the kings of Babylonia, commercial property
generally remained subject to fragmenting laws of inheritance, to
comprehensive taxation, and, insofar as transportation was concerned,
not infrequently also to government regulation of oxen, carts, and
e. Gsell assumes that normally the government claimed 25 per cent of the crops
as tax. Polybius (1.78.2) shows that in emergencies as much as 50 per cent might be
collected (Gsell, HA, II: 303).
/. Meyer (GA, III: 644) calls the Carthaginian government a "commercial autocracy."
g. Aristotle, Politics 2.11.1273a. Aristotle, who noted that in Carthage the greatest
offices, such as those of kings and generals, were bought, considered this "a bad
thing." "The law which allows this abuse makes wealth of more account than virtue."
For an elaboration of these points see Gsell, HA, II: 235 ff.
264 PATTERNS OF PROPRIETARY COMPLEXITY
hired men.38 It has been said before, and because of the importance
of the issue it must be said again: the holders of active mobile prop-
erty might organize in guilds, and often the state compelled them to
do so; but neither the merchants nor the craft guilds were integrated
in independent political machines on a local or national basis.
The gentlemen traders of Aztec Mexico seem to have been content
to act as a commercial appendage to the secular and religious rulers;
and nothing is known regarding any attempts on their part to domi-
nate Mexican society. The "rich" Maya, whose quarters were close to,
but not identical with, those of the masters of the state, operated at
the outer edge of the power system. Commoners, "apparently men of
wealth or influence," sometimes "insinuated themselves into political
positions considered to be above their station," but "the official hier-
archy was purged from time to time of the pretenders and upstarts,
who were not versed in the occult knowledge of the upper class." 37
In the Old World, the marginal hydraulic societies of Byzantium
and Russia differed greatly from Maya society, but their private trad-
ers also failed to become politically dominant. In Byzantium the mer-
chants, however wealthy they were individually, remained politically
and socially restricted until the nth century. During the final phases
of Byzantine history, the men of property who succeeded in paralyz-
ing the absolutist apparatus were not merchants or artisans, but land-
lords.
In Muscovite Russia the merchants were little more than economi-
cally useful domestic animals; nor did the big merchants in China
rise to political prominence when semicomplex patterns of property
prevailed at the end of the Chou period and during the middle part
of the first millennium a.d.
b. Hindu India
The corresponding developments in early India are particularly in-
structive because the Aryan conquest was accomplished by a group
that, although aware of the importance of irrigation canals,38 empha-
sized cattle wealth, trade, and traders. The Vedas speak respectfully
of merchants.* In a hymn in the Atharva-Veda-Samhita merchants
pray to the god Indra as "the merchant par excellence." S9 The great
epics that were composed very much later 40 confirm the relatively
high and influential position of the Vedic merchant in what Hop-
kins calls "the Aryan state." 41 However, they leave no doubt that
h. Grassmann, RV, I: 197; II: 113; cf. Banerjee, 1925: 155. Less esteemed, although
equally prosperous, was the pani, a businessman who sought gain "either through
trade or through usury" (Banerjee, 1925: 156).
CHAPTER 7, G 265
"in distinction from nobles and priests," the merchants, together with
the Aryan peasants, belonged to "the people."42 Thus whatever the
status of the Aryan commoners, the Vaisyas, may have been in pre-
historic times, in the Vedic era they were "oppressed by the princes."
It was in this era — or even later in the subsequent Buddhist period 43
— that professional associations of merchants began to appear.**
Of course, the rise of such bodies proves nothing about their politi-
cal independence. In simple Oriental societies — and often also un-
der more complex conditions — the professional corporations are use-
ful tools of government.. The epics voice the king's concern with the
merchants, particularly in times of war and crisis; but the merchants'
chief political importance may well have been derived from their
possible conspiratorial value to enemy countries.45
There can be no doubt regarding the prospering of trade and
traders during the Buddhist period; and there can be no doubt
either regarding the social prominence of the government-attached
chief merchants, the setthi. However, this does not justify the claim
that the merchants, as a group, were able in the major centers of
what was then Hindu India to normally and conspicuously influence
— or control — the political decisions of their respective governments.
These governments were not necessarily monarchies. In the home-
land of Buddhism, northeast India, there were several republics, in
which the ruler discussed public affairs in full and frequent assem-
blies.46 But the merchants were not included in these bodies. The
meager information we have on eight of the ten republics listed by
T. W. Rhys-Davids 47 shows all of them to have been dominated by
members of the warrior caste, Kshatriyas.48 Buddha considered their
assemblies an ancient institution; *° and it may well be that the pat-
terns of Aryan society * persisted somewhat longer in the northeast-
ern area, in which hydraulic action, although highly advantageous,
was not so crucial as in the more arid western parts of the north In-
dian plains.*' However, irrigation agriculture and hydraulic enter-
prises were by no means absent in the northeast; 50 and the aristo-
cratic republics clearly moved toward a monarchical form of power 51
which was already widespread in the days of Buddha k and which,
after a transitional period of turmoil and conquest, came to prevail
throughout the heartlands of Aryan culture.52
1. For the original role of an aristocracy of warriors see Hopkins, 1888: 73; Keith,
192a: 98.
/'. Cf. Stamp, 1938: 299 ff. Oldenburg (1915: 284) regrets that the studies of Vedic and
Buddhist India have neglected the solidly Brahmin development in the west and the
great susceptibility of the east to the anti-Brahmin movement of Buddhism.
k. For the despotic character of these Indian monarchies see Law, 1941: 169 ff. Cf.
Fick, 1920: 105 ff.
266 PATTERNS OF PROPRIETARY COMPLEXITY
In the restless and changing Indian society of this important pe-
riod many governments availed themselves of the services of a setthi.
Apparently a man of means,53 the setthi often advised and aided the
ruler in economic matters.54 His position, though not that of an offi-
cial,55 was distinguished and hereditary,56 vacancies being filled by
the king.57
The term setthi means "best, chief." 58 Manifestly he was a "repre-
sentative of the commercial community," 59 but it is most important
to note that he did not operate as the constitutionally established
spokesman of organized merchant power. Nor does he seem to have
been regularly — or primarily — concerned with guild affairs. His title
"may possibly imply headship over some class of industry or trad-
ing"; 60 and a famous setthi mentioned in the Jataka tales apparently
"had some authority over his fellow-traders." 61 But this authority,
even if real, was rooted in a body whose organizational effectiveness
has not yet been clearly established. In Buddhist and post-Buddhist
India there certainly were merchant corporations, but C. A. F. Rhys-
Davids warns against over-estimating the degree to which the traders
were syndicalized.62 To repeat her conclusion: "There is ... no
instance as yet produced from early Buddhist documents pointing to
any corporate organisation of the nature of a gild or Hansa league." 63
All this does not preclude the political prominence of merchants
in some Orientally submarginal cities or city states of classical India;
but it stresses the need for a most careful examination of the sources
adduced to prove such prominence.
Hopkins, the well-known Sanscritist, cites a Nepalese legend of
the 3d or 4th century a.d. as offering particularly valuable data on
the political power of a merchant guild."1 In his opinion this legend
"records that Thana was ruled by a strong merchant guild." 64 Turn-
ing to the Bombay Gazetteer which Hopkins consulted,65 we find that
it makes a significantly more limited claim: "A strong merchant
guild ruled the trade of the city." 66 The city in question is Sopara,
one of several settlements located on the coast of Thana,67 south of
modern Bombay. Turning to the legend itself, we find that the mer-
chants in question, far from controlling the government of the city,
did not even control its trade. A single powerful outsider prevailed
over the "500" merchants who were trying to corner the market, and
he did so after both parties were summoned to appear before the
king, who manifestly was the undisputed ruler of the city and the
merchants.88
The Indian development is instructive in several respects. The
m. "Later literature down to our own time contains frequent reference to such
bodies, but no thorough treatment of them is to be found" (Hopkins, 1902: 175).
CHAPTER 7, G 267
Kshatriya republics show that hydraulic regimes need not be mo-
narchic; but their final phases also underline the tendency toward
a concentration of power that inheres in such regimes. The fate of
the merchants is equally worth noting. During the formative days
of the Aryan conquest society, traders enjoyed considerable social
prestige. But subsequently their position deteriorated, and this hap-
pened despite the fact that they were tightly organized.
c. Ancient Mesopotamia
Were the merchants more successful in the great Western Asiatic
cradle of Oriental trade, ancient Lower Mesopotamia? Sumerian
legends speak of elders and assembly-like gatherings, which the
legendary king, Gilgamesh, consulted before making decisions.69
What do these tales mean? Boas has convincingly argued that myths
contain fictitious as well as realistic features and that realistic ele-
ments may be exaggerated or transformed into their opposites.70
There may very well have been proto-Sumerian assemblies similar to
the warrior assemblies of the Aryan conquest republics in northeast
India. Kramer assumes the existence of a military aristocracy during
the formative period of prehistoric Sumer.71 But whatever the insti-
tutional quality of these legendary assemblies may have been, no
such gatherings dominated the Sumerian city states when they
emerged in the light of recorded history. To quote Jacobsen: "The
political development in early historical times seems to lie under the
spell of one controlling idea: concentration of political power in
as few hands as possible." 72 In each of the early Mesopotamian city
states "one individual, the ruler, united in his hands the chief politi-
cal powers: legislative, judiciary, and executive." 78 In each of them
the king handled the despotic state apparatus through the agency of
an effective secular and priestly bureaucracy, "the court and temple
administrators and intellectuals," as Kramer calls the new core of
the "ruling caste." 74
Significantly there are few, if any, traces of assemblies in the sim-
ple hydraulic society of historical Sumer. With regard to Babylonia
the situation is otherwise. Babylonian inscriptions refer to assem-
blies, to elders, and — in the same context — to merchants. Could it be
that the growth of Babylonian trade also increased the power of its
representatives, the big merchants?
The possible extent, and the limitations, of merchant power are
indicated by the Assyrian merchant colonies, which flourished in
Cappadocia during the earlier part of the second millennium B.C.
These Assyrian settlements were established in an area which, al-
268 PATTERNS OF PROPRIETARY COMPLEXITY
though lacking political unity,75 comprised a number of territorial
governments.
The Assyrian traders who settled far to the north of their home-
lands did not dwell inside the Cappadocian towns. The walled sec-
tions were reserved for the native population and for the palaces of
the ruler.78 Moreover, the local authorities77 inspected the trader's
commodities in the palace and also, it seems, had a first claim on any
goods they wanted to sell.78 The presence of such local authorities
did not mean that the colonies were independent of the Assyrian
metropolis. In the end it was Assur that decided legal cases and that
had the power to impose taxes: 78 "The authorities of Assur and ulti-
mately the king were therefore the superiors of the Assyrian authori-
ties in the commercial centers." 80
Within this over-all frame the colonies dealt with their judicial
matters in "a general assembly of all colonists," 81 the karum; and
this body also settled other communal problems.82 Evidently the
members of these Assyrian trade colonies enjoyed a greater autonomy
than did the merchants of Assyria or Sumer, or — after the close of
the Sumerian period — Babylonia; but they did not dominate the
Cappadocian towns, nor were they politically independent in their
own quarters.
Babylonian absolutism, like that of Sumer, was rooted in a com-
pact agromanagerial economy; and private property probably played
a secondary role in agriculture as well as in commerce." In any case,
no serious institutional analyst claims that the assemblies, and
through them the merchants, controlled the Babylonian govern-
ment. The king and his men dominated the administration, the
army, and the fiscal system. The king was also the lawgiver. Further-
more, he and his functionaries were strategically situated in the ju-
diciary. At the king's service "judges of the king" ruled according
to the "legal practice of the king." 83 But the royal judges, who fre-
quently combined administrative, military, and legal activities,84 re-
n. Probably. The reasons for the second part of our assumption have been given
above; the reasons for the first will be given below when we discuss the extent of
private landownership. Dr. Isaac Mendelsohn, in a personal communication and on
the basis of an independent examination of the inscriptions, believes that in both
spheres of Babylonian economy private property was more extended than the com-
bined property of the state and the temples. No doubt the facts of the matter have
to be decided by the period specialists; and our tentative classification of Babylonian
society is therefore open to whatever adjustments future research may postulate.
But assuming for the sake of the argument that the private property sector exceeded
the public sector, there is still no need to change our evaluation of the subordinate
political position of the Babylonian merchants. In the same personal communication,
Dr. Mendelsohn rejects an interpretation of Babylonian society as democratic.
CHAPTER 7, G 269
lied for the settlement of local issues heavily on local assemblies.
These bodies dealt primarily with legal matters.85 Operating under
the king's control, they constituted "a kind of civil jury." °
The members of these assemblies were "elders," "notables," "mer-
chants" (under a head merchant), and "men of the gate." 86 Accord-
ing to Cuq, these designations refer to separate groups that acted
either alone or in combination.87 Whether Cuq's interpretation is
correct or not and whatever the terms "elders," "notables," or "men
of the gate" may mean, for our present purpose it is sufficient to
know that the assemblies were essentially judicial bodies and that
among their members there were merchants headed by an akil
tamgari.
In early Babylonia the akil tamgari seems to have been the direc-
tor of the Department of Commerce or the Department of Finance,
and as such the chief of the fiscal bureaucracy.88 He headed the ordi-
nary merchants, who undertook commercial expeditions, "at times
exclusively in the interest of the crown." p He thus was a prominent
official through whom the absolutist regime exerted control over the
country's traders.
Occasionally an assembly dealt with issues that concerned a whole
town; and its merchant members would therefore be participating
in matters of considerable local importance. However, since the as-
sembly was presided over by a royal governor or town prefect and
since it acted essentially as a civil jury, it certainly did not control
the town government; and the merchants, who were under the au-
thority of the akil tamgari, were not free to control even their own
professional spheres, the country's trade.
d. Conclusions
The lessons of all this are obvious. Powerful groups of rich mer-
chants may control the government of their commonwealth; and this
may happen even in communities that fulfill substantial hydraulic
functions. But as far as we know, such developments did not result
in anything that can be called the rule of hydraulic merchants. The
great merchants of Venice operated in a societal setting in which hy-
o. Cuq, 1929: 361. Occasionally they also handled political crimes, but the case cited
by Jacobsen involves no deeds, but words only: "seditious utterances" (Jacobsen,
1943: 164).
p. Kriickmann, 1932: 446. Was the head merchant of the king, rab tamqar sa iarri,
who is mentioned in the Neo-Babylonian inscriptions, the successor of the akil tamqari?
His activities were obscure. Ebeling (1933: 454) places him among the "high
officials," adding that he "probably conducted commercial and monetary transactions
for the king."
270 PATTERNS OF PROPRIETARY COMPLEXITY
draulic institutions were submarginal. And Carthage, although cer-
tainly more hydraulic than Venice, may well have belonged, either
from the start or eventually, to the submarginal zone of the hy-
draulic world.
Carthage-like or Venice-like commercial commonwealths flour-
ished in considerable numbers at the geographical fringe of hy-
draulic society; and there is no reason why such commonwealths
should not have constituted independent heterogeneous enclaves
also within certain zones of the hydraulic world. We therefore do
not reject Max Weber's assumption that independent commercial
communities may have flourished in Buddhist India.89 But the evi-
dence adduced is not conclusive; and in a number of cases reexamina-
tion reveals that the position of the merchants is far from being
politically dominant.
Further inquiries into the political role of merchants in institu-
tionally peripheral regions will certainly deepen our insight into the
diversities that exist within the margin and the submargin of the
hydraulic world. They may also shed more light on the limitations
of mobile private property even in those hydraulic societies in which
private-property-based commerce became more important than gov-
ernment-managed and government-attached trade.
H. COMPLEX PATTERNS OF PROPERTY IN
HYDRAULIC SOCIETY
1. Hydraulic Landlordism, Past and Present
The limitations of immobile property in hydraulic society are
equally significant — and equally misunderstood. The institutional
pioneers who viewed the despotic state as the only major landowner
tended to neglect the problem of private landownership altogether.
Modern observers, who have noted the paralyzing influence of ab-
sentee landlordism in the Orient, are inclined to treat as a basic fea-
ture of hydraulic society what in many cases is only a feature of
hydraulic society in transition. And they are quick to interpret in
terms of past (feudal) or present (capitalist) Western institutions
what is actually a specific Oriental development.0
a. To mention just one key issue: the establishment of private peasant land by
means of a thoroughgoing land reform has one meaning when it is undertaken by
the separate forces of a relatively decentralized postfeudal or industrial society
and quite another when it is undertaken by the government-controlled forces of a
disintegrating hydraulic order or, for that matter, by a totalitarian state of the Soviet
type. Major changes in the system of land tenure that occurred in modern Japan,
in Russia under the Tsars or under the Bolsheviks, in Nehru's India, or in Communist
CHAPTER 7, H 271
More will be said on this subject in our concluding chapter. In
the present context we are concerned essentially with the roots of
the modern development: the extent and peculiarities of private
landownership prior to the dissolution of hydraulic society.
2. Government-controlled and Private Land in
Hydraulic Society
The extent and the peculiarities of private land in hydraulic society
can be properly viewed only when we remember the extent and the
peculiarities of hydraulic state power. In the majority of all hydraulic
societies the despotic regime kept private land in a quantitatively
subordinate position. In all hydraulic societies the despotic regime
limited the freedom of the private land it permitted to exist.
a. Types of Government-controlled Land
In order to establish the extent of private land we have to clarify
the extent of government-controlled land. This last comprises three
main types: (1) government-managed land, (2) government-regulated
land, and (3) government-assigned land.
All land that is kept by government measures from being alienated
either to or by private landowners is regulated land in the broad
sense of the term, and in this sense all government land is regulated
land. In a narrow sense, the term "regulated land" will be applied
essentially to that part of government-controlled land that is man-
aged not by the government but by possessors, who work for, or pay
tax or rent to, the government. The term "government-managed
land" will be applied to land that is farmed under the direction of
government functionaries and for the immediate and exclusive bene-
fit of the government. The term "assigned land" will be applied to
land that is temporarily, or indefinitely, assigned to officials (office
land), to representatives of the dominant religion (sacred or temple
land), or to some distinguished persons who do not, in return, fulfill
any special secular or religious functions (sinecure land).
i. government-managed land
Government-managed "public" land was never more than a mi-
nor part of all regulated land, since the peasants who cultivated the
"public" fields also needed land for their own support. Above a cer-
tain agronomical level and except in some strategically important
China are frequently treated as if they were more or less identical, though in their
societal substance and effect they are entirely different phenomena.
272 PATTERNS OF PROPRIETARY COMPLEXITY
regions, the hydraulic state preferred the payment of a land tax from
the individually cultivated fields to products from public fields.
Imperial China, although favoring private ownership of land,
maintained farm colonies for the support of the army, primarily in
border areas, but at times also in critical inland areas: at places that
were being "pacified" and along vital lines of communication. The
tilling in these colonies was done either by soldiers (in which case
they were generally called "garrison fields," t'un-t'ien) or by civilians
(in which case they were frequently called "camp fields," yin-t'ien).
The two types of fields together occasionally comprised as much as
one-tenth of all cultivable land, but in most dynasties the fraction
was much smaller.
Apart from military colonies, there were government domains for
the growing of special crops, and parks and gardens for the rulers'
pleasure. These secluded retreats were often built with corvee labor,
but usually they were cared for by professional cultivators, palace
laborers, and slaves 6 — that is, they were government-managed. But
while remarkable in this respect, they were spatially insignificant.
They were tiny islands in a sea of peasant farms, whose occupiers or
owners supported the government not by their labor or public fields
but by their tax payments.
ii. GOVERNMENT-REGULATED LAND
The most important type of all government-controlled land is per-
haps the least clearly defined: peasant land which is neither managed
by government officials nor assigned to groups of grantees, nor owned
by the cultivators. This type of land cannot be simply equated with
the land of village communities, since not all peasants who possess
regulated land live in integrated village communities — that is, in
communities that distribute and redistribute the land. Nor are all
village communities under the control of the government.
Regulated peasant land, in terms of the present inquiry, is land
that a holder cannot alienate freely. Often, and particularly when
the land is periodically redistributed, a holder may be allowed to
lease it to other villagers,0 but he cannot sell it.d In other cases he
b. Royal or imperial gardens and parks have been described by many authors. For
the Mexican lake area see Ixtlilxochitl, OH, II: 209 ff.; for Pharaonic Egypt, Erman
and Ranke, 1923: 206 ff.; for ancient Mesopotamia, Meissner, BA, I: 201, 292; Contenau,
!95°: 53 ff-; for the Islamic Near East, Mez, 1922: 362 ff.; for Muslim Spain, Levi-
Provencal, 1932: 223; for India, Jatakam: passim and Smith, 1926: 402 ff.; for Chou
China, Legge, CC, II: 127 ff.
c. This was customary among the calpulli members of Aztec Mexico. See Zurita,
1941: 88; Monzon, 1949: 39.
d. For an elaborate description of the regulated village community in Tsarist Russia,
the obshchina or mir, see Haxthausen, SR, I: 129 and passim.
CHAPTER 7, H 273
may sell it but only to other villagers — that is, to fellow peasants. In
Byzantium earlier directives were restored and reenforced in 922
by a law which permitted the peasants to sell land to the following
groups and in this order: (1) co-possessing relatives, (2) other co-
possessors, (3) persons whose land was adjacent to the land to be
sold, (4) neighbors who shared the seller's fiscal responsibility, and
(5) other neighbors.1 These regulations made it impossible for a
landlord to purchase peasant land except in villages where he was
already an owner.2 As long as they worked, they protected the bulk
of the peasant land from falling prey to the expanding forces of land-
lordism.
Similar principles were employed in Hindu e and Muslim India.
Bulwarked by the law-enforcing powers of the state, the Indian village
community "protected small farming against the invasion of capital-
istic interests," and it did so "by maintaining [for the villagers] the
rights of entail, pre-emption, and preoccupation." s
The cases of Byzantium and India, which could be supplemented
by data from other civilizations, demonstrate the negative effects of
regulated land on the growth of private landownership. Wherever
the Orientally despotic state insisted on keeping the bulk of all land
regulated, private ownership of land was kept in a secondary and not
infrequently in an irrelevant position.
iii. GOVERNMENT-ASSIGNED LAND
The despotic regime that is able to regulate all or a large part of the
land is also able to assign portions of it to any individual or group of
individuals. Such land assignments may differ in purpose and dura-
tion, but usually the two aspects interlock. Persons who serve the
government may hold their office land for life or even hereditarily.
Others may hold their offices only for a short term; in such cases
tenure over their office land is equally brief. Serving men who fulfill
military functions are particularly apt both to obtain and to lose
their office land suddenly.
Land grants made to those who serve the gods are more stable. En-
during religious organizations, such as temples and mosques, are al-
most always permitted to retain their grants indefinitely.
Sinecure land is given for a variety of reasons to a variety of per-
sons. The grantees may be so distinguished because of their meritori-
e. See Appadorai, 1936, I: 133 ft. The alienability of land has been seen as a sign
of ownership, whereas it may merely be indicative of a flexible form of possession.
Jolly's (1896: 94) interpretation makes allowance both for the (externally) regulated
and the (internally) fluid conditions of village land. He assumes "that generally the
villages were shut off from the outer world, but that within the individual villages
there existed private property of land."
274 PATTERNS OF PROPRIETARY COMPLEXITY
ous acts or merely because they are the ruler's relatives, friends, or
favorites/ In all instances the land is assigned unconditionally. The
grantees do not render service for the revenues which the sinecure
land yields. This is also true for the holders of pension land. But
whoever the beneficiary may be, the government remains the master
of the assigned land.
Sacred (temple) land is usually supervised and/or managed by
secular government officials. This has been established for Pharaonic
Egypt,* for Ptolemaic Egypt,5 for Babylonia,6 and of course, for pre-
Conquest Peru and Mexico. In the Islamic world, direct or indirect
state control over the various types of religious property persisted,
with many modifications in detail, until recent times.7
Control over office land is guaranteed by the government's opera-
tional control over the landholders. A normally functioning despotic
regime determines the fate of its serving men and the lands allotted
to them. When, at the close of the Chou period, the chancellor of
the state of Ch'in made merit rather than inheritance the essential
basis for office,-9 he met with no conspicuous resistance; and through-
out late Chou China the decrease of areas administered by holders
of office land 8 were accepted with equal meekness. No organized
group of "barons" rose against the imperial unifier of China when he
finally and decisively discarded the office land system in its entirety.
Nor did Akbar's decision to substitute in large part salaries for office
land 9 meet with any greater challenge. Akbar went far, but not so
far as the Turkish Sultan Suleiman, who spectacularly demonstrated
that a well-functioning despotism could abolish office land as easily
as it could create it.10
Sinecure land might be given without any limitation as to time.
In this case possession might come to an end when the ruling dynasty
fell. In Pharaonic Egypt this seems to have been the rule; " and it is
not unlikely that the land grants in ancient Peru would have suffered
the same fate if the Inca regime had been replaced by other native
rulers. Often sinecure land was intended to support the recipient as
long as he lived, but the grantor's death might terminate the assign-
ment earlier. The land grants of ancient Hawaii were apparently so
conditioned.12
f. Cf. Jatakam, I: 56 (grant given to the king's barber); II: 193 (to a Brahmin), 270
(to a princess), 457 ff. (to a princess); IV: 1 x6 (to a Brahmin), 309 (reward for finding a
precious antelope), 415 (to a princess), 480 (reward for singing a special verse); V: 21
(reward for useful advice), 35 (to ascetics), 45 (to a hunter), 374 (to a hunter); VI: 135
(to a barber), 355 (to the king's brother or son), 422 (to a setthi), 438 (to good advisors),
447 (to an advisor). Cf. ibid., I: 362 ff., 424, 462.
g. Shih Chi 68.4a; Duyvendak, 1928: 15, 61. The "nobles" whom he restricted more
CHAPTER 7, H 275
b. Private Land
i. DEFINITIONS
Land that is government-managed, government-regulated, or gov-
ernment-assigned is obviously not the property of private landowners;
and it cannot be so viewed, even when possession is prolonged. Per-
manency of possession is not enough (hereditary tenants also enjoy
this privilege); nor is the right to alienate enough (holders of
regulated land are sometimes permitted to alienate it within their
social group). Only when the proprietor has the right both to hold
his land indefinitely and to alienate it to persons outside his social
group do we encounter what, in conformance with established usage,
can be called full private landownership.
ii. ORIGINS
The commoners and nobles of early Greece, Germany, Gaul, and
England owned their land not because of the decision of an auto-
cratic ruler but because of differentiations within a tribal society,
which produced multiple patterns of private property and political
leadership. In hydraulic society it was essentially the ruler and his
functionaries who established private landholding by transferring to
individual owners what was previously government-controlled land.
Individuals usually became landowners through gifts or sale. Entire
groups were made landowners by government decree. After a piece
of land had been recognized as private property, it could, within
government-set social limits, be transferred from one private owner
to another. Large-scale conversions of regulated land into private
land are relatively rare in the history of Oriental society. They seem
to have occurred only where private-property-based handicraft and
trade were well developed.
c. Types of Landownership
i. PEASANT LANDOWNERSHIP
Who then are the potential owners of land in hydraulic society? In
Oriental as in other agrarian societies the key figure in the basic
subsistence economy is the peasant. We can therefore expect him to
play an important role in the expanding sector of private land-
ownership; and indeed in China the establishment of free private
land involved the emergence of a large class of peasant owners.
and more (ibid.: 27; Shih Chi 68.8b) are said to have hated him (Duyvendak, 1928: 23;
Shih Chi 68.6b), but his measures led to no organized "baronial" rebellion.
276 PATTERNS OF PROPRIETARY COMPLEXITY
ii. BUREAUCRATIC LANDLORDISM
But the Chinese development is the exception rather than the rule.
In the majority of all cases it is not the peasant owner but the non-
peasant owner who first and prominently appears in the private land
sector. Evidently the more complex a hydraulic society becomes,
the greater the number of social groups that seek to be landed
proprietors. But one group among them is outstanding: the civil
and military functionaries of the government and their relatives,
the bureaucratic gentry.
Under simple conditions of property few others are rich enough
to buy land. And even where there are wealthy merchants or
traders, the bulk of the surplus, and consequently the bulk of the
purchasing power, remains in the hands of the governing class.
Furthermore, it is to members of the governing class that the ruler
is most likely to make gifts of land.
Bureaucratic landlordism therefore tends to appear in all types of
hydraulic society, whatever their complexity. It prevails completely
in those simple hydraulic societies in which private land is at all
relevant. It is a significant feature in many semicomplex hydraulic
societies. And it is crucial in complex hydraulic societies where
privately owned land outweighs state-controlled land.
Data on landed property in Pharaonic Egypt are vague even for
the New Kingdom.13 A few statements that are specific speak essen-
tially of princes, viziers, and other members of the governing class
as owners of private land.14
In Aztec Mexico private lands were held by the rulers, their
officials, and some merchants.15 In Hindu India the Brahmins did
not, as was the case with priesthoods in many other hydraulic soci-
eties, live on large and permanently granted temple lands. Conse-
quently, in Hindu India land grants to individual Brahmins fulfilled
a special function, and it is not surprising to find that they were
numerous. Many of them carried only the right of possession, but
a number of Brahmins seem to have owned land at least in the
last phase of Hindu rule.16 In Byzantine Egypt the "powerful ones"
who had large estates were most frequently officials; 1T and this
pattern is repeated in Islamic times. Among the persons who, during
the Mamluk period, acquired private land, actual or former holders
of office land were prominent.18 In Ottoman Turkey some office
lands became the private property of former holders.19
In Middle Byzantium functionaries were for a time forbidden
without special imperial permission to purchase land while they
held office. The restriction retarded the growth of bureaucratic land-
CHAPTER 7, H
277
ownership but did not prevent it.20 In Tsarist Russia the edict of
1762 converted the pomeshchiki, who had been possessors of office
land, into landowners. In later imperial China government func-
tionaries were forbidden to purchase land in the district in which
they officiated.21 Nothing was said regarding the purchase of land
outside this area; and the evidence at hand suggests that among the
owners of land officiating and nonofficiating members of the govern-
ment class were outstanding.
iii. OTHER SOCIAL GROUPS
To be sure, members of other social groups also owned land, if they
had the necessary means and if they were permitted to. In semi-
complex and complex hydraulic societies rich merchants particularly
were likely to acquire land; and information on Aztec Mexico,22
India,23 and China shows clearly that they did so. Moreover, the
measures invoked by the Han dynasty reveal both how well en-
trenched this type of landlordism might become and how ruthlessly
a ruling bureaucracy might combat it.24 Of course, even persons of
modest wealth might buy land. In traditional China persons from
all walks of life owned small pieces of land
25
iv. ABSENTEE LANDLORDISM (THE GENERAL TREND)
Occasionally a nonpeasant owner of land, who for some reason
or other was deprived of his occupation, might assure his support by
personally turning to farming. h Generally, however, nonpeasant
landowners left the tasks of cultivation to tenants. In many cases
they were absentee landlords.
In Medieval and post-Medieval Europe tenancy and absentee land-
lordism were also widespread. However, many landlords personally
managed their large estates (Giiter) or employed stewards for this
purpose.
The small incidence of large-scale farming in hydraulic society is
due primarily to the high crop yield obtained by labor-intensive
methods, which are in part required and in part stimulated by irriga-
tion agriculture.26 These methods provide extraordinary advantages
for small-scale peasant farming on a family basis. The advantages are
so striking that the dominant hydraulic "economic ethos" (Wirt-
schaftsgesinnung) discouraged large-scale and "manorial" methods,
even when they might have been profitably applied.
The significance of this attitude for hydraulic society in transition
h. For Brahmins who tilled their land either with or without the aid of farmhands,
see Jatakam, II: 191 ff.; Ill: 179, 316; IV: 195, 334 ff.; V: 70.
278 PATTERNS OF PROPRIETARY COMPLEXITY
is obvious. The consolidation of landlordism in postfeudal Europe
encouraged many owners of large farms to cultivate their land
scientifically. The recent growth of landlordism in many hydraulic
countries intensified the acquisitive zeal of the absentee landlords
without increasing the rationality of tenant farming.
V. ABSENTEE LANDLORDISM (TRADITIONAL RUSSIA)
An interesting variant of absentee landlordism appeared in Tsarist
Russia. The pomeshchiki of Muscovite and post-Muscovite Russia
were kept so busy rendering military or civil services that they
could not pay much attention to farming, as did the landed nobles
of England or Germany. In consequence, large-scale and scientific
farming was extremely limited among landholding aristocrats in
Russia prior to 1762, and despite some expansion it remained the
exception long after this date.
Baron Haxthausen, who made his famous study of rural Russia
in the 1840's, was struck by the difference between landlords in
Russia and in the rest of Europe. Although unaware of the peculi-
arities of Oriental despotism, he clearly recognized that Russia's
landowning aristocracy lacked a feudal tradition:
The Russian, the Great-Russian nobility, is not a landed nobility
[Landadel] now, nor in all probability was it ever one; it had
no castles, it did not pass through a period of knighthood and
[private] feuding. It always was a serving nobility, it always
lived at the Courts of the Great Princes and the smaller princes
and in the cities, rendering military, Court, or civil services.
Those among them, who lived in the countryside, peacefully
pursued agriculture; but in actuality they were either insignifi-
cant or unfit. Even today the majority of the Great-Russian
nobles have no rural residences, no [manorial] economies as we
see them in the rest of Europe. All the land that belongs to the
noble — cultivated land, meadows, forests — are left to the peasant
village community that works it and pays the lord for it. Even
if the lord owns, and lives in, a country house, he still does not
have a [manorial] economy, but rather lives like a rentier. Most
nobles have country houses, but they live in town and visit the
country house only for weeks or months. This is the old Russian
way of life of the aristocracy! 27
The Russian nobles' peculiar detachment from the land they
owned — together with the fragmenting law of inheritance — kept
them from becoming "a real landed aristocracy," as Haxthausen
CHAPTER 7, H 279
knew it in Central and Western Europe. "I do not think that there
is, in any major country in Europe, less stability of their land than
in Great Russia." 28
It is against this background that we must view the two great
agrarian changes accomplished by the Tsarist bureaucracy in the
second half of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century: the
emancipation of the serfs from their former landlords (in 1861) and
Stolypin's reform (in 1908). In both cases resistance was great; but in
both cases the new measures were introduced by members of the
same governing class that comprised the bulk of all landlords.
vi. BORDERLINE CASES OF REGULATED AND PRIVATE
LAND TENURE
Absentee landlordism is quickly apparent, more quickly than the
exact proprietary quality of a particular piece of land. How many
of the land "grants" of Pharaonic Egypt or Buddhist India were
given with the intention of establishing possession? How many with
the intention of establishing ownership? The records often fail
to provide definite information on these points. And even when they
suggest the right of ownership — how secure was this right? Segre,
in comparing the proprietary developments under Oriental ab-
solutism and in classical Greece, concludes that "private property
in a sense approaching to classical ownership could not exist as long
as the king could exercise the power of withdrawing rights either
to land or to liberties or change these terms at will." 29
Brahmin property was believed to be safe from confiscation. But
this did not prevent Hindu rulers from seizing Brahmin land for
"treason," which the king's judiciary had no difficulty in establishing
when it suited his purposes.30 In Pharaonic Egypt private landowner-
ship, although perhaps more extensive than in Hindu India, was
equally insecure. Indeed it was "basically nothing but an exceptional
transfer of royal prerogatives, a transfer which as a matter of princi-
ple could be reversed at any time and which was often reversed when
a new dynasty came into being." 31 In such cases it is manifestly hard
to draw a sharp line between possession and ownership.
Another difficulty arises from the fact that in certain hydraulic
societies the right to alienate private property in land is spread
unevenly. Nonpeasant landlords may be free to buy land from other
landlords, whereas the peasants who live in a regulated rural order
enjoy no corresponding right of alienation. In hydraulic society
such mixed patterns create a major classificatory problem only when,
as in Late Byzantium and in Russia after 1762, the land held by
280 PATTERNS OF PROPRIETARY COMPLEXITY
landlords comprises a large part (perhaps more than one-half) of all
cultivated land. When this is the case, we can speak of an incipient
pattern of complex hydraulic property and society.
d. The Extent of Private Landownership in Various
Subtypes of Hydraulic Society
The categories of government and private land developed so far
enable us to advance beyond our initial tentative position and to
correlate with greater precision and fuller evidence the advance of
mobile and immobile private property in various hydraulic civiliza-
tions. Germs of private landownership were present even in hydraulic
societies in which private-property- based industry and commerce were
of little consequence, but they did not assume major dimensions.
This confirms the validity of our concept of "simple" patterns of
hydraulic property and society. In hydraulic civilizations with a
substantial sector of mobile property and enterprise, private land-
ownership frequently remained a secondary feature, and occasionally
an insignificant one. This confirms the validity of our concept of
semicomplex patterns of hydraulic property and society. Furthermore
it confirms our contention concerning the relative scarcity of the
complex configuration — a configuration in which immobile private
property is as prominent in agriculture as, in its peculiar way and
with its peculiar limitations, mobile property is prominent in in-
dustry and trade.
On the basis of these results, we shall contemplate briefly the
extent of private landownership in some of the major hydraulic
civilizations. In this survey certain crucial data that were adduced in
the discussion of our key criteria have to be mentioned again. But
they now appear in a new context and, in a number of cases, they
are supplemented by important additional information. In accord-
ance with our previously established concepts we shall advance from
simple to semicomplex and eventually to complex conditions of
property and society.
i. SIMPLE HYDRAULIC SOCIETIES
Hawaii: Ancient Hawaii certainly knew private possession of land.
But it is doubtful whether there existed full landownership, since
the "estates" even of the most powerful territorial "chiefs," the
governors, "reverted to the king" after the holder's death and since
"at the accession of a new king ... all the lands of an island" were
reassigned.32
Inca Peru: As stated above, sinecure lands were held privately and
CHAPTER 7, H 28l
indefinitely, but the holders of such lands lacked the right to alienate
them. Thus they were not owners but permanent occupiers.
Sumer: At the close of the Sumerian period, genuine private land-
ownership emerged.33 However, the governments of the earlier
temple cities seem to have exercised a strict control over the cul-
tivable land. The records so far deciphered fail to reveal the exist-
ence even of such private landed possessions as have been docu-
mented for Inca society.
Pharaonic Egypt: In addition to government land proper and to
government-assigned land (temple land and office land), there was
private land which could be alienated,3* but the king could cancel
a holding at any time. Generally speaking, private landownership was
more the exception than the rule.35
ii. SEMICOMPLEX HYDRAULIC SOCIETIES
India: Numerous inscriptions document for the last southern phase
of Hindu India what was already certain for the Buddhist and post-
Buddhist periods,36 namely that "most villages" were occupied by
ryotwari 37 — that is, by peasants who were under the direct control
of the state. This implies that private landownership can have
existed only in a (not very large) minority of all villages.
Mesopotamia: At the end of the Sumerian period and in Baby-
lonian society private landownership is clearly apparent. Did it
become the dominant form of land tenure? Evidence to this effect
would lead us to class this period not as semicomplex but as com-
plex. However, available data seem at best to indicate semicomplex
patterns of property. At best. If state trade equaled or exceeded
private trade during a large part of the Babylonian period, we would
be faced with an advanced simple or an incipient semicomplex situa-
tion.
For Late Sumer — the Third dynasty of Ur — the texts frequently
mention private property in fields a well as in houses and gardens.38
But although the temples were no longer alone in leasing land, they
are still most frequently mentioned in this respect.1 For Babylonia,
Meissner finds that the best and largest tracts of lands were in the
hands of the government and the temples. "What still remained of
the land was private property." 39 Schawe's analysis of the tenancy
conditions of the period seem to confirm Meissner's view: in Baby-
lonia land was rented out "primarily by the state and temple domains
and then also by private individuals." *°
i. Schneider, 1920: 58. Hackman's (1937: 21 ff.) numerous references to fields un-
fortunately are often vague concerning their property position.
282 PATTERNS OF PROPRIETARY COMPLEXITY
Cuq stresses the specific position of land that was made private
through royal gift.41 At the same time he mentions among the
features that led to differentiations in land tenure the emergence
(or reemergence?) under the Kassites of communities which he char-
acterizes as tribal and kinship-based,42 but which he also compares
with the Russian mir 43 — that is, with a purely administrative type
of village community. The details of the Kassite rural units are
still obscure,44 but we know that they were interlinked with the
governmental apparatus through certain of their leaders and that
they regulated the landed possessions of their members in ways not
too different from those of the Mexican calpulli and the Inca ayllus.
During the last phase of Babylonian history the two types of
government-controlled land still prevailed — if what the Persians
found in Mesopotamia is indicative of the Neo-Babylonian condi-
tions. In Persian Mesopotamia there were (1) state lands that in
large part were assigne.- to individuals, (2) "large tracts of land"
held by the temples, and (3) lands "held in fee simple by the in-
dividuals." The first two categories were obviously very extensive:
"With much of the land held by the state and the temples, the
number of land transactions is not so large as that of other sales." 45
Again we lack statistical data, but the above statement suggests that
the process of "privatization" had gone further in mobile than in
landed property.
Persia: The Persians used the government-controlled land (and
outside the Greek cities this was the bulk of all cultivated land)
very much as had the Babylonians and Sumerians before them. They
assigned it to members of the royal house and to friends of the king
(obviously as sinecure land), to officials, resettled soldiers, and
persons obligated to provide contingents for the army (obviously as
office land).46 Knowing the conditions under which office land was
held in other Oriental despotisms, we have no reason to doubt that
this land, like the regulated peasant land, was what Rostovtzeff takes
it to be: state land.
The Persian office land was not a feudal institution, nor did it
inspire a feudal order among the Parthians. The big Parthian land-
holders were no semi-autonomous fief-holders who spent most of
their time attending to their personal affairs. Instead, and very much
like their Persian predecessors, they were government officials.3
;'. Christensen, 1933: 307. According to Christensen, the Parthian government was
"despotic" in form, at least as long as the Parthian monarchy was united (ibid.).
Did the political order change when the monarchy disintegrated into several territorial
kingdoms? This is, of course, possible but it is by no means certain. On the basis of
comparable cases, it seems more likely that the smaller and later Parthian kingdoms
CHAPTER 7, H 283
Hellenistic Monarchies of the Near East: Private .landownership
was confined essentially to the Greek cities,47 which were few in
Egypt but numerous in Western Asia. Outside these Greek enclaves,
the land was controlled by the government and by government-
attached temples.
The Seleucid rulers established considerable private land through
grant or sale 4S "on condition that the grantee joined his land to
some city and made of it city-land"; 49 and, of course, they assigned
office land to soldiers and probably also to civil functionaries.50
The kings of Pergamum do not seem to have reduced the royal
land at all. "Like the Ptolemies, they must have gifted the (revocable)
user of estates on King's land to officials." 51
In Ptolemaic Egypt "private land originally meant house, gardens,
and vineyard; even the house and garden of a Royal peasant were
'private.' Greeks sometimes called it property, but it was, like every
other Ptolemaic form, not property but user; apart from the Greek
cities, the property or legal estate in any land in Egypt never left
the king." 52
It is in the light of this statement that we have to view the exist-
ence of certain "private" grain land. Rostovtzeff suggests that this
type of land had existed in Pharaonic Egypt; 53 and what we know
of the earlier period confirms his assumption. However, we must
remember first the instability that in Pharaonic times characterized
landed property generally, and second the loose way in which the
Ptolemaic (Greek) masters of Egypt employed the term "private."
The "private" land, whose spread the Ptolemies encouraged, was
"regulated emphyteutic" tenure 54 — that is, a lease of "deserted land"
"for a long period (hundred years) or in perpetuity." The rights over
this kind of property were "transferable by alienation or succession
and enjoyed in a certain measure the same protection as owner-
ship." 55 By developing emphyteutic tenure, the Ptolemies strength-
ened the trend toward landownership. But until the Roman era, this
trend does not seem to have gone beyond a relatively strong form of
"landed possession." 56
The Roman Interlude: Under the Romans private property
emerged on a large scale.57 The reasons for this extraordinary de-
velopment— and for its limited success — are treated below in con-
nection with the discussion of complex patterns of property.
The Islamic Near East (the first centuries): The Arab conquerors
were smaller Oriental despotisms, with certain leading families hereditarily holding
the top-ranking positions in government and occupying very substantial tracts of
office land.
284 PATTERNS OF PROPRIETARY COMPLEXITY
of Egypt and Syria perpetuated most of the Byzantine institutions,58
including patterns of land tenure. For obvious reasons many former
holders of estates fled,59 and those who stayed 60 lost the right to
collect the taxes for the government.61 Alongside them, prominent
Arabs established themselves on deserted private estates and the
old state domain.62 These new holders bought and sold land, and
they held their property, qati'a,63 hereditarily.64 But the qati'a repre-
sented an emphyteutic form of possession; 65 and it is doubtful
whether holders could enlarge them by freely buying peasant land.
Their Byzantine predecessors had been forbidden by law to do
so; 66 and the new Arab state was certainly as eager as the officials of
Eastern Rome — and probably better able — to protect the regulated
villages. Apparently, the qati'a possessions increased in extent,67 but
they remained in the hands of a limited group of leaders. The mass
of the Arab tribesmen lived in military camps; 68 and it was only
after several generations that the qati'a were spread into the villages.69
We need not follow here the step-by-step rise of a new system
of landed property, whose beneficiaries were both tax collectors and
holders of office land.70 This system appears clearly and consistently
in Mamluk society.
Mamluk Society: At the beginning of Mamluk power virtually all
the cultivable land of Egypt was divided into twenty-four units,
which were either controlled directly by the sultan or assigned as
office land.71 Private land, mulk, was "almost absent." fc Its later
growth was accomplished "mostly" by an intricate process which
required a holder of office land to surrender part of it to the treasury
before he purchased it from the government, either directly or
through a middleman.72
But while mulk continued to increase until the end of the period,
it remained only one of a number of types of land that an official
(and usually a military official) might control. In addition to his
office land (iqta') and to his mulk, he might possess pension land,73
and he might also be the manager of a waqf which he had founded 74
and which in all likelihood would yield him and his family a steady
income.
Ottoman Turkey: The Turkish sultans demonstratively established
the hegemony of state land by officially abolishing the bulk of
privately owned land."1 Some "landowners proper" seem to have
k. Poliak, 1939: 36. Poliak assumes that private lands were, at the beginning of the
Mamluk period, "numerous" in Syria.
m. Gibb and Bowen, 1950: 236, 258, n. 4; cf. Poliak, 1939: 46. This refers essentially
to cultivable land and pastures. The farmhouses and the land around it were always
mulk; and vineyard and orchards were usually so considered (Gibb and Bowen,
1950: 236).
CHAPTER 7, H 285
existed from the start; 7S and local "notables" (a'yans) acquired mulk,
perhaps through conversion of office and other land.76 But until the
recent period of transition, most of the land was controlled by
the government, which assigned part of it as office land or waqf
and taxed the remainder through the agency of its tax farmers."
The tax farmers had many prerogatives. In the non-Arab provinces
they might transfer a vacant peasant farm ° to a resident of another
village, but "only after offering it to the peasants of the village to
which the land in question was attached." 77 In the Arab provinces
their position, by the 18th century, approached that of holders of
military office land. In Egypt they were given one-tenth of all village
land under the name of wasiya. They could sell this wasiya land, but
only to another tax farmer and only when they, at the same time,
transferred to the buyer a corresponding amount of their jurisdic-
tional domain.78 In the Arab provinces the fellahs could alienate
their land "to other fellahs." 79 Regarding the Arab territories, Gibb
and Bowen expressly state that the person responsible for collecting
the taxes "might not deprive a fellah of his land, except for non-
payment of taxation." 80 Thus in both the non-Arab and Arab prov-
inces the majority of all peasants were hereditary occupiers of assigned
or regulated state land.81
The prerogatives of tax farmers and of holders of assigned lands
present important problems; but all of them arise within the con-
text of government-controlled land. Since land of this type comprised
the bulk of all cultivated acreage, we feel justified in saying that the
Islamic Near East, up to the 19th century, was characterized by a
semicomplex pattern of Oriental property and society.
Maya Society: The Maya system of land tenure is not clear.8-
There probably was some individual landownership,83 but most of
the cultivable land seems to have been "common" (regulated) land.84
Pre-Conquest Mexico: Early sources agree that the bulk of all land
in this area, as in Yucatan and Peru, was government controlled.
The great majority of all peasants (and townspeople) lived in
regulated communities (calpulli).85 But there were also certain pri-
vate lands, tierras proprias patrimoniales,** which were tilled by
mayeques*7 peasants attached to the soil.
According to Zurita, private land had long been in existence.88
Did it originate through grant or sale? And how freely could those
who held it dispose of it? Local officials were permitted to sell
n. Gibb and Bowen, 1950: 237. The authors cite a statement according to which the
"Sipahis" used to convert the state land they held into private property "in later
times" (ibid.: 188, n. 6). Unfortunately the reference specifies neither the approximate
date nor the extent of the development.
0. A farm whose deceased owner was without heirs (Gibb and Bowen, 1950: 239).
286 PATTERNS OF PROPRIETARY COMPLEXITY
calpulli lands, if they were not burdened with obligations; and as
stated above, the buyers of these tracts — which were then alienable —
were either members of the ruling families or "some officials or
merchants." 89 However, most of the calpulli land was burdened
with serious and lasting obligations in that its yield was destined
to support either the members of the calpulli themselves or officials
of the local or central government, garrisons, or temples.90 In con-
sequence, the amount of land available for sale was probably small.91
It is not clear to what extent the tierras proprias patrimoniales
originated from the sale of calpulli land. Some, or perhaps even
many, of these private holdings may well have been grants made by
the rulers to distinguished individuals. In contrast to the allodial
estates of feudal Europe, the tierras proprias patrimoniales remained
under the jurisdiction of the government; 92 and in contrast to the
serfs of allodial or feudal estates the Mexican mayeques served the
government "in time of war or need." 93 This formula is compre-
hensive. In Aztec Mexico, as in other hydraulic societies, the govern-
ment determined one-sidedly what kind of services it needed.
Not being office lands, the private holdings were not kept intact
by the will of the government. And not being allodial or feudal
estates, they were not entailed by the will of the owner: "no son de
mayorazgo." 9'4 In fact, the private lands of ancient Mexico were as
similar to the sinecure lands of other Oriental societies as they
were dissimilar to the strong landed property of feudal and post-
feudal Europe. In all probability they represented a smaller per-
centage of all cultivated land than did private lands in Babylonia
or in early Islamic society. According to one estimate, the private
holdings in ancient Mexico amounted to little.95 According to an-
other, they may have comprised somewhat more than 10 per cent of
the total cultivated area.*
111. COMPLEX PATTERNS OF HYDRAULIC
PROPERTY AND SOCIETY
Oriental societies in which there was less private land than
government-controlled land are many. Private land was insignificant
in the higher civilizations of South and Meso-America when they
were overrun by the Spaniards. It remained a secondary feature in
India, Sumer, Babylonia, Persia, the Hellenistic monarchies of the
Near East, and Islamic society. In the early phases of state-centered
Chinese society it appears to have been as unimportant as it was in
p. This figure was suggested in a memorandum on land tenure in pre-Conquest
Mexico prepared for the present inquiry by Dr. Paul Kirchhoff.
CHAPTER 7, H 287
pre-Conquest America; and when China, under the impact of Inner
Asian forces, temporarily discarded the free forms of landed property
that had prevailed at the end of the Chou period and throughout
the imperial dynasties of Ch'in and Han, regulated patterns of land
tenure prevailed again.
Thus, our survey confirms what we tentatively suggested at the
start of our discussion of hydraulic land tenure. Prior to the recent
period of institutional disintegration and transition, private land
may have prevailed in the Near East under Roman rule; it certainly
prevailed in China from the later part of the first pre-Christian
millennium to the 5th century a.d. and, after an interlude of almost
three centuries, again and until our time.
The Roman Near East: Did such classically hydraulic countries as
Egypt, under Roman rule, actually develop complex patterns of
property? The conquerors did indeed establish private landed prop-
erty within the terms of Roman provincial law; 96 and in Byzantine
Egypt prior to the Arab conquest large estates were certainly held
by the "powerful ones," the dynatoi. But how widespread was land-
ownership at the beginning of the Roman empire? And to what
extent did it prevail during the 5th and 6th centuries?
Under Roman influence private land was created through grants,97
through transfer of cleruchic land (military office land),98 and through
the sale and grant of other government land.99 This was a far cry
from Hellenistic conditions; but even scholars who emphasize the
qualitative differences 10° are usually careful also to indicate the
quantitative limitations. The greater part of the former cleruchic
land was taken back by the government immediately after the con-
quest; 101 and out of the private estates that temporarily came into
being as the result of grants or sales "the majority" soon again
became imperial property.102 Thus "the best land continued for the
most part to form the royal domain and to bear the name royal
land." q And since, in the main, it was the larger estates that were
confiscated, private land seems essentially to have been held by small
owners. This is particularly true for Egypt and Asia Minor. A
greater incidence of large estates is suggested for Syria and Pales-
tine.103
The existence of private landownership is said to have reached a
q. Bell, 1948: 73. On the basis of several decades of additional research Bell con-
firms what Mommsen had cautiously noted in 1885, namely that the imperial domain
constituted "a considerable part of the entire area in Roman as in earlier times"
(Mommsen, 1921: 573). Johnson and West (1949: 22) refer to "the retention of the
great bulk of arable land as the property of the [Roman] crown"; and Johnson (1951:
92) calls "the amount of privately owned land in Roman times . . . slight."
288 PATTERNS OF PROPRIETARY COMPLEXITY
second peak on the eve of the Arab conquest, especially in Byzantine
Egypt. What actually were the conditions of land tenure in Egypt
during this period? The peasants, who because of extreme fiscal
pressure had become increasingly reluctant to farm — not a few ran
away from their villages — became the targets of elaborate "reform"
measures. Government control in the form of compulsory permanent
tenancy (epibole) became more and more strict.104 Increasingly the
peasants were permanent holders of land which they were forbidden
to leave. As coloni, they were attached to the land which, from
then on and within the confines of a rigidly regulated village com-
munity, became their "private" possession.105 The continuing fiscal
burdens caused many villages to look to "powerful" protectors,
primarily members of the governing class, and to the church.100
These individuals, who were designated patroni until 415,107 did not
exert authority everywhere — many villages remained directly sub-
ordinated to the fiscus and the imperial administration.108 Nor did
they integrate "their" peasants into a typical and large-scale manorial
economy,109 although for lack of a better term their holdings are
usually referred to as "estates."
The edict of 415, which acknowledged the position of large land-
holders, also reaffirmed the government's claim on the fiscal and corvee
services that the landholding coloni had previously fulfilled.110 The
holders of the new estates were delegated to collect taxes for the
government from their coloni. But although this function endowed
the new landlords with great power,111 the state upheld its fiscal
rights without compromise: "the rate of taxation was the same for
all." 112 Thus with regard to the most crucial fiscal aspect the estate
holders were not privileged: "that their tax rate was less than others,
there is no evidence whatsoever." r
Under Justinian (to be precise: in 538) the Byzantine government
r. Johnson and West, 1949: 240. In the 2d and 3d centuries the tax collectors seem
to have been in the main municipal groups or individual businessmen who had their
fiscal duties imposed upon them as a "liturgy." The government used these liturgical
obligations to destroy the economic strength of propery-based groups (Wallace, 1938:
347 ff.); and it transferred the fiscal tasks to the bureaucratic landlords, who, being
politically better connected, succeeded where the private entrepreneurs had failed. But
these landholders were in no sense feudal lords, who could appropriate the bulk of
the peasant surplus they collected, From the 4th to the 6th century the Byzantine
collectors were generally allowed commissions of some 2 per cent on the collection
of wheat, 2% per cent on barley, and 5 per cent on wine and pork (Johnson and
West, 1949: 328, cf. 290). Whether these rates were valid for Egypt we do not know
(ibid.); but we do know that the Egyptian tax collector was entitled to a fee of one-
eighth to one-twelfth of the money tax he raised (ibid.: 268, 284), that is, to a com-
mission of 8 to 15 per cent. By manipulation he could raise his share to from 10 to
20 per cent of the money tax (ibid.: 268, 284 ff.).
CHAPTER 7, H 289
expected a tax revenue from Egypt that was larger than that men-
tioned for the time of Augustus.113 This fact involves a number of
questions which have not as yet been solved.114 For our purpose,
however, it is enough to know that the Byzantine government was
able to tax the Egyptian peasants as comprehensively and success-
fully as did the Romans under their powerful first emperor.
To be sure, there were in Egypt at the close of the Byzantine
period large units of private landed property: estates. These estates
arose under a bureaucratic government; they were held mainly by
bureaucratic landlords; and they were organized in a conspicuously
bureaucratic way.8
All this we know. We do not know, however, "whether these estates
of Egypt were privately owned or were leaseholds from imperial and
ecclesiastical properties, or even from small farmers." 115 We do not
know either whether these estates, prior to the Arab conquest, com-
prised more than one-half of the cultivable land. The law forbade
the estate holders to purchase peasant land at will, and according to
Johnson,116 "there is no evidence" that this legislation "was ever
a dead letter." The landlord's proprietary position, even if it had
the character of ownership, was legally limited. The freedom of the
villagers, it need scarcely be repeated, was even more severely re-
stricted.
The historical data known today suggest that in such Near
Eastern countries as Egypt private landownership did not prevail
at the beginning of the Roman period and they give little reason to
assume that this type of ownership spread later in such a way as to
even temporarily establish complex patterns of property and society.
China: Authentic historical records state that in the 4th century
B.C. in the state of Ch'in the traditional regulated field system was
abolished and that from then on, land could be bought and sold
freely.117 The records dealing with the imperial dynasties of Ch'in
and Han imply that after the unification of China private land-
ownership prevailed generally.118 When, in the first century B.C.,
s. Bell finds that in contrast to feudal lordship in the West, which "was a replica
in little of the kingdom to which it belonged," the estate of Byzantine Egypt "repro-
duced in little the bureaucratic empire of which it formed a part; its organization and
its hierarchy of officials were modelled on the Imperial bureaucracy. Indeed it is
sometimes impossible, in dealing with a papyrus document of this period, to be
certain whether the persons whose titles are mentioned in it were Imperial officials
or the servants of some great family" (Bell, 1948: 123 ff.). This overlapping of titles,
far from being accidental, reflects an overlapping in positions. The proprietors of
these estates were for the most part, if not exclusively, officiating or nonofficiating
members of the governing class, who even in their capacity as landlords functioned
as semi-officials: tax collectors and leaders of the hydraulic and nonhydraulic corvees.
2gO PATTERNS OF PROPRIETARY COMPLEXITY
merchants accumulated substantial mobile and immobile property,
the government took strong fiscal measures to reduce their wealth,
and an edict in 1 19 B.C. forbade them to own land; 119 but this edict
did not interfere with land transfers between other classes, and
even in the case of the merchants it seems to have been maintained
only temporarily.
Unfortunately the historical sources leave important aspects of
the agrarian development unexplained; and this is true both for the
first period of complex property relations and for the subsequent
regulated agrarian order that was instituted in the 5th century a.d.
and endured until the middle of the 8th century. However, the
information at hand is sufficient to illuminate at least the main
trends in these periods.120 During the last millennium, dynasties of
conquest reserved lands for their tribal supporters and for some
Chinese who had joined their conquering armies; but for the bulk
of their Chinese subjects they upheld private landownership. It has
been estimated that during the last phase of the Ch'ing (Manchu)
dynasty the combined bannerland of the Manchu, Mongol, and
Chinese bannermen amounted to some 4 per cent and privately
owned land to almost 93 per cent.'
Although prior to this phase nongovernment land may at times
have amounted to no more than one-half of all land,121 and although
a variety of legal clauses gave the right of preemption (primarily)
to relatives,122 it seems evident that China went further than any
other major Oriental civilization in maintaining private ownership
in land.
The reasons for this extraordinary development are by no means
clear. But certain facts are suggestive. In China the critical changes
occurred after the middle of the first millennium B.C., when several
important culture elements appeared simultaneously: plowing with
oxen, the use of iron, and the art of horseback riding. We hesitate
to dismiss this coincidence as inconsequential. None of these elements
emerged in the hydraulic areas of pre-Conquest America; and in the
Near East and India they emerged separately in the course of a
drawn-out development. In both areas plowing with labor animals
was known from the dawn of written history, whereas the use of
iron spread later, and the art of horseback riding later still. Could
t. Buck, 1937: 193. The estimate used by Dr. Buck puts privately owned land at
92.7 per cent, land assigned to Manchu nobles together with some "crown land" at
3.2 per cent, "state land" (land set aside for the maintenance of schools, religious
purposes [state cult]) at 4.1 per cent. These data are approximate. They do not make
allowance for private ancestral and temple land, which, according to the same source,
amounted to less than .05 per cent.
CHAPTER 7, H 291
it be that the simultaneous rise of new techniques of agricultural
production and of military coercion and fast communication (and
the assurance the two last gave to the maintenance of government
control) encouraged the masters of Chinese society to experiment
confidently with extremely free forms of landed property? Whatever
the reason for the fateful step may have been, once taken it was
found to be politically workable and agronomically and fiscally
rewarding.
The Chinese development — which requires further investigation
— is remarkable not only for its success but also for its geographical
limitations. It seems to have affected certain southwestern neighbors,
especially Siam. But many cultural contacts with more remote Asian
countries notwithstanding, the Chinese system of private landowner-
ship remained essentially confined to the area of its origin.
3. How Free Is Private Landed Property
in Hydraulic Society?
Thus private landownership was present in many hydraulic civiliza-
tions; but except for a brief and recent period of transition, the
combined private lands were less extensive than the combined public
lands. More. Even where private landownership did prevail, it in-
variably was prevented from achieving the kind of freedom which is
possible in a multicentered nonhydraulic society.
a. Despotically Imposed versus Democratically Established
Restrictions of Private Property
To be sure, in no society does an owner absolutely dispose over his
property. Even under conditions of strong property the owner of
bricks, who may sell or store them or use them in building his house,
may not throw them at his neighbor. The early Roman emphasis
on the proprietor's sovereign position, although meaningful fiscally,
is not valid societally.
Even fiscally the holder of strong property is not necessarily
without burdens. In most free commonwealths some public func-
tionaries have to be supported, and when this is the case, the citizens
may have to draw upon their property to satisfy this need. Contribu-
tions from private property for the maintenance of the government
will be used only for proven essentials when the property-based
forces of society can keep government in a serving position. Such
contributions will increase, and be spent more freely, when an im-
perfectly controlled government partially determines its own budget.
They will be determined one-sidedly and with primary concern for
2g2 PATTERNS OF PROPRIETARY COMPLEXITY
the interests of those in power when a state stronger than society
prevents the representatives of property from protecting their inter-
ests. It is under conditions of the first type that we find strong,
though never absolute, property. And it is under conditions of the
third type that property is weak. In hydraulic society immobile
property, like mobile property, remains weak even where private
landownership quantitatively outweighs public land tenure.
b. Restrictions Imposed upon the Freedom to Enjoy, to
Use, to Transfer, and to Organize
Oriental despotism one-sidedly restricts the landowner's freedom
to enjoy the fruits of his property, to decide on its use, to will it
freely (through testament), and to protect it by means of political
organization.
The agrodespotic government demands payments from all land-
holders, either for its own use or for the use of especially privileged
persons or institutions (temples, mosques, churches); and it deter-
mines the land tax one-sidedly, according to its own (the rulers')
rationality standard. Tenancy may stratify the proprietary sector; and
the changing strength of local and central authorities may alter the
distribution of state revenues within the bureaucratic order. But
neither condition affects the fundamental arrangement that compels
owners and/or possessors of land generally to surrender a substantial
part of their revenue to the representatives of the state.
Directly, this arrangement aims at the fruits of operational landed
property. Indirectly, it also influences (and limits) the use to which
a given piece of land may be put. The government bases its fiscal
demands on the expectation that the peasant occupiers (or owners)
will grow a crop capable of yielding a certain return. This demand
forces the cultivator to grow the standard crop or an acceptable sub-
stitute. Occasionally, and particularly in regulated agrarian orders,
the government may expressly prescribe that certain plants or trees
(rice, corn, olives, hemp, cotton, or mulberry trees) be cultivated;
and in these cases the proprietor's freedom to determine how his land
should be used is nil. Frequently, however, the government is con-
tent to presc 
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